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A NOTE ON THE CONCEPT OF SERVICES
Author(s) -
Drechsler Laszlo
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4991.1990.tb00307.x
Subject(s) - service (business) , commission , product (mathematics) , work (physics) , economics , aggregate (composite) , business , actuarial science , marketing , public economics , computer science , operations research , mathematics , engineering , finance , composite material , mechanical engineering , materials science , geometry
Not one of the many service definitions proposed by various authors and applied in practice enjoy general acceptance. Is it feasible to reach an international agreement on the definition of services? The answer is probably yes; however, is it worthwhile to spend considerable resources to reach such an agreement. Does an overall services aggregate indeed provide important analytical uses? Many doubts are expressed in this respect. Authors of recent international work on the statistics of services tend to accept a more flexible attitude: instead of having one single definition on services, several service concepts could be applied depending on feasibilities and other circumstances of the various statistics. However, all service definitions should be based on the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) and on the Central Product Classification (CPC), recently approved by the Statistical Commission of the United Nations.