Resumen de Are knowledge intensive business services always so efficient as they are said to? an empirical approach of KIBS in a peripheral region

Fernando Rubiera Morollón , María del Pilar Quindós Morán, María Rosalía Vicente Cuervo

• The aim of this paper is to analyse the efficiency in knowledge intensive business services, also known by their acronym KIBS. The firms belonging to this sector are said to have high efficiency degrees due to their specialisation. Nevertheless, some authors claim that high efficiency scores only work for those firms located in central nodes of development. Within this context we analyse KIBS efficiency in a Spanish peripheral region. Results show important differences in efficiency levels between KIBS firms as well as a low average for the whole of these activities. These findings may imply differential externalisation gains for subcontracting firms, reinforcing, at the same time, the idea of the effect of spatial concentration over KIBS efficiency.