Services and regional development: An analysis of their role as human capital drivers in the Spanish Regions

The complexity of economies nowadays necessitates qualified workers more than ever. Given the great share of services in production and employment, the educational attainment of the people employed in this sector has a special impact on growth. Following this reasoning, the aim of this paper is to analyse the extent to which the differences in the location of the service sector can explain the differences in human capital, and, as a consequence, in development, among the Spanish regions. The results obtained highlight the ‘human capital-intensive’ nature that a great share of service activities have, and the tendency of ‘very high-skills’ services to be concentrated in regions with higher levels of human capital.