The paper investigates whether scale effects, market structure, and regulation determine the poor productivity performance of the European business services industry. We apply parametric and nonparametric methods to estimate the productivity frontier and subsequently explain the distance of...

Using data from 11 EU countries, the paper investigates the impact of scale economies on labour productivity in European business services. Moreover, it analyses whether the incidence of scale sub-optimality is related to characteristics of the market or to national regulation characteristics....

The paper investigates whether the poor productivity performance of the European business services industry is related to scale effects, market structure, and regulatory impacts. We apply parametric and nonparametric methods to estimate the productivity frontier and so obtain the distance of...