Page "Services marketing" Paragraph 3

Adam Smith ’ s famous book, The Wealth of Nations, published in Great Britain in 1776, distinguished between the outputs of what he termed “ productive ” and “ unproductive ” labor.

The former, he stated, produced goods that could be stored after production and subsequently exchanged for money or other items of value.

But unproductive labor, however ” honorable ,... useful, or ... necessary ” created services that perished at the time of production and therefore didn ’ t contribute to wealth.

Building on this theme, French economist Jean-Baptiste Say argued that production and consumption were inseparable in services, coining the term “ immaterial products ” to describe them.