The Potential Bias in Producer Service Employment Estimates: The Case of the Canadian Space Economy

C. Michael Wernerheim and Christopher A. Sharpe
Additional contact information
C. Michael Wernerheim: Department of Economics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, StJohn's, Newfoundland, Canada, AIC 5S7, wern@mun.ca
Christopher A. Sharpe: Department of Geography, Memorial University af Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland, Canada, AIC 5S7, casharpe@mun.ca

Urban Studies, 2001, vol. 38, issue 3, 563-591

Abstract: Footloose information technology producer services are increasingly viewed as the new engines of regional growth and employment creation. The claim is often that appropriate government policy can engineer comparative advantage in that direction by means of judicious subsidisation. The evaluation of such claims relies on accurate statistical data. We argue that attempts to distinguish in survey data or official statistics the subset of services commonly (but unofficially) known as producer services from consumer and government services may result in a potential 'bias' with implications for public policy. An input-output model is developed for estimating this bias by decomposing service industry data into its producer and consumer services content. This method can give a truer estimate of the actual employment in producer services at various spatial levels. We find a systematic bias in official data and a non-systematic bias in survey data. The model is applicable to countries and regions for which input-output data are available.

Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980123294 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:38:y:2001:i:3:p:563-591

DOI: 10.1080/00420980123294

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().