Servicification of investment and structural transformation: The case of China

Structural transformation is a key feature of economic development. Traditional literature attributes it to changes in the sectoral composition of consumption. Different from it, we argue that “servicification” of investment goods, induced by investment-composition technological change, becomes an increasingly important reason for structural transformation, particularly for the rise of the services economy. Our study of the input output tables finds that the share of service inputs in investment goods has grown significantly in many countries since the 1980s, especially for investment-intensive economies such as China. To assess if the investment channel is quantitatively significant, we build a standard model with three broad sectors, but instead add an investment production function employing factors from all three sectors. Moreover, we incorporate investment-composition technological change by allowing the productivities of the three sectoral inputs to evolve over time. We calibrate the model to the Chinese economy from 1981 to 2014 and perform counter-factual experiments accordingly. We find that investment-composition technological change accounts for 33.1% decline in employment share of agriculture, 36.0% increase in employment share of manufacturing and 31.5% increase in employment share of services over the period. The magnitude of this effect on the share of services keeps growing, particularly after 2000. Our findings are not unique for China, but also apply to other economies experiencing the “servicification” of investment. •The share of service inputs in investment goods has grown significantly in many countries.•Investment-composition technological change accounts for more than 30% of the rise of services in China.•The model with varying investment composition accounts for China's structural transformation better than the model without.•Investment channel is important for understanding structural transformation in investment-intensive countries.