Forward and backward linkages of producer-services establishments: Evidence from the Montreal Metropolitan Area

Producer services are intermediate-demand functions that serve as inputs into the production of goods or of other services. Despite the obvious economic importance of producer services, research on these activities is still in a relatively early stage of development. This paper attempts to contribute to the general understanding of the structure and the functioning of producer services in metropolitan economies by providing concrete answers to several questions currently being debated by researchers. For example, do producer services exist primarily to respond to demand from the manufacturing sector, and to what extent are producer services exported beyond the boundaries of the local economy? The empirical analysis is based upon a survey, conducted in 1992 and 1993, of 324 producer-services establishments in the Montreal metropolitan area. An innovative aspect of the present study is to view producer-services establishments simultaneously as producers and as consumers of intermediate-demand inputs.