5. Conclusions and implications
The goal of this study was to analyze the input-output structure and economic impact of the knowledge service industry in four countries – Korea, the US, the UK and Japan – through an input-output analysis, and horizontally compare the result while determining the competitiveness of the knowledge service industry in Korea and generating policy suggestions on that basis. The strategic implications that can be drawn from the findings of the international comparison analysis of the competitiveness of the knowledge services industry are as follows. First, the weight of the knowledge services industry in the US economy is less than that in British economy considering all aspects of input and output other than the value added ratio. This finding runs counter to the results of analyses conducted based on the Input-Output Tables in the US in 2002, and means that the knowledge service industry in the US is at a standstill as of 2010 (Heo and Yoo, 2009). However, compared to Japan, the knowledge services industry of the US is superior in every respect, except for the value added ratio index. Compared to Korea, it is superior in every respect. This indirectly suggests that Korea and Japan still maintain a manufacturing-oriented economic structure. While the knowledge services industry in the US has a small impact on production inducement and employment inducement effects, both the effect ratio and the response ratio, which indicate the forward and backward linkage effects, are bigger than one. This shows that the knowledge services industry still has a big impact on the US economy. The US established a service-base economic structure centering on service-centered policy that embraces the knowledge service industry. In the meantime, the financial sector achieved rapid growth. However, since 2008, it has been recognized that there are limitations in the ability to realize stable growth based on the service industry (including financial businesses) alone (EOP, 2009, 2012).
