Deindustrialization and the rise of services as an autonomous engine of growth: an approach from a review of the literature

Abstract

Economic development has been associated with a broad industrialization process ever since the Industrial Revolution. But since the 1960, most countries are deindustrializing, while the service sector is transforming and increasing its productivity, innovation and exports. In this context, a proposal for a development strategy based on services exports for countries that failed to industrialize is rising. However, literature on the “servitization” of manufacturing finds connections between manufacturing and the transformation of services, which could affect the viability of this strategy. The objective of this paper is to analyze the transformation of the service sector and its link with manufacturing based on recent literature. To fulfill this task, we gather and systematize the arguments of the literature on manufacturing servitization and we also perform a bibliometric analysis. The results suggest that the successful international insertion in services results from a process of maturation of the industrialized economies that involves changes in the composition of the productive structure and the export basket.