Dallas Fed: Opportunity Knocks in U.S. Service Sector

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DALLAS, April 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Americans can maintain good jobs and high
living standards by exporting their services to the world, according to the
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' 2007 annual report essay.
U.S. companies are prepared to meet the world's growing demand for
services, Dallas Fed President and CEO Richard Fisher says in an opening
letter.
"We export more services than any other nation -- by a long shot," Fisher
writes. "Better still, most of what we sell abroad are highly valued services
-- industrial engineering, entertainment, health care, and the work of
architects, lawyers and other professionals."
Education is key if American companies want to outpace global competition
in the service sector.
"Every chance I get, I stress the importance of education to good jobs and
rising incomes in this country -- a point this essay underscores," Fisher
says.
"Opportunity Knocks: Selling Our Services to the World" -- the 2007 annual
report essay -- finds that the U.S. runs trade surpluses in 15 of 20
categories of services exports, suggesting the country is highly competitive
in global markets.
A two-decade-old revolution in communications and information processing
has made selling U.S. services to the world cheaper and easier, according to
the essay's authors, W. Michael Cox, senior vice president and chief
economist, and Richard Alm, senior economics writer.
With their rising incomes and large populations, China and India may
provide the biggest potential marketplaces for U.S. services, say Cox and Alm.
"The emerging giants we sometimes fear may offer our greatest
opportunity," they state.
The U.S. tends to export services with a high knowledge content, the
product of well-paid and educated workers, the authors find.
"Most of our workers are already in the service sector, where they've been
dealing with people, not machinery or land," Cox and Alm write. "The
combination of diversity and experience puts us ahead of most other countries
in the ability to deliver services to a global marketplace."
SOURCE Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

James Hoard of Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, +1-214-922-5307,
james.hoard@dal.frb.org