Introduction of the ‘Service Industry Development Index’: Initial thoughts on the new paradigm shift

The current world economy is facing a huge paradigm shift. Many argue that the period of rapid growth, which lasted for about 200 years, has come to an end, and we are facing a period of stagnation and low growth. The economy of tangibles has reached its limits, and the world is in need of a new industrial revolution. In this new industrial revolution, the world economy needs to focus on the intangible goods to increase consumption and employment. Unlike tangibles, intangible goods are infinite resources that are based on the infinite needs of consumers. We suggest that the world economy needs a shift to focus on the intangible services sector to overcome the current low growth. In the current research, we suggest a new framework to measure the degree of development for service sectors, which in turn, will expedite the development of the service industry. In the newly developed “Service Industry Development Index (SIDI),” we suggest to include dimensions such as productivity of added value, perception of services, business environment, horizontality of industry, legal and institutional advancement, subdivision of occupations, and globalization. In the current research, we initiate the efforts in developing a standardized index, however, we suggest different parties around the world take part in discussing this issue for development of a refined SIDI in the future.