Growth and productive dynamism of business services: EU-15, Spain and the region of Madrid

The aim of this study is to evaluate the structure and dynamism of Business Services in the Autonomous Region of Madrid together with the Spanish and the European cases. In particular, it focuses on the comparative analysis of productivity and its components, as well as a specific geographical and location study of these services in the Region of Madrid. The sector productivity structure of countries and regions is similar. From this, it may be deduced that productivity units of the different countries, within the same branch, use fairly similar productivity methods and technologies. Maybe the distinguishing factor is the labour cost in terms of added value per employee. The relative size of the different branches rendering Business Services differs among the regions compared. This not only implies differences among the three cases in question, but also more general economic discrepancies, mainly related to the processes of economic organisation. Regarding the location of the services, the city of Madrid takes almost three quarters of Business Services of the whole region. In spite of this spatial concentration, the comparative evaluation of 1991 and 2001 data proves the existence of a trend, still weak, towards the de-concentration of areas, or geographical growth, of Business Services. Also the dynamic analysis has permitted the discovery of another interesting asset: in the majority of the areas, the establishments have increased faster than the number of employees. This indicates that, on average, the size of new establishments has tended to be reduced.