The comparison between the Basque Country and Catalonia is a reference that Miquel Puig uses to justify that Catalonia is performing worse due to its greater tourism specialization compared to the Basque Country. (La Vanguardia, 8-29-2026). Other economists who join Puig in this reflection also refer to the fact that the Balearic Islands are also performing worse due to their excessive tourism specialization compared to the rest of the Autonomous Communities, a fact that causes a relative loss of per capita income motivated by the low productivity that these service activities generate compared to industry. As we argue below, we do not believe that the analysis Puig makes for Catalonia can be transferred to the Balearic Islands, among other things because the Balearic Islands rather act as a counterexample to what they defend for Catalonia.
A recent study by the BBVA Foundation and the IVIE questions the idea that an economy highly specialized in tourism must necessarily be less productive than a more industrial one. In fact, if one looks at the contribution of productivity to GVA growth between 2020 and 2023, the economies that are at the forefront are, in this order: Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Basque Country, and Catalonia. That is to say, it places the most tourist-oriented economies of the State at the forefront, including Catalonia. The Basque Country, the most industrialized one, occupies the third position.
The overall productivity of an economy does not only depend on industry and tourism. It is also necessary to analyze what happens with the rest of the branches and sectors that have representative weight in the economy and also condition the behavior of global productivity.
In the study Regional Outlook on Labour Productivity in Spain 2000-2022. Documentos ocasionales del Banco de España, n. 2605, prepared by Carles Manera, Ferran Navinés, Javier Franconetti, José Pérez-Montiel and Miquel Quetglas, we have studied the behavior of labor productivity per hour worked by sectors and by productive branches for the 17 Autonomous Communities and for the 2000-2022 period.
The sectoral disaggregation has been carried out for the primary sector, industry, construction, and services, and since we are studying highly tertiarized economies, we have disaggregated the services sector into these branches: trade, hospitality, transport, and communications services (Schtc), which is where most private companies directly or indirectly linked to tourism are concentrated; financial and insurance services (Sfin); and the rest of market services excluding health and education (Spri), which means that public services are grouped together with education and health in a single branch (Spu).
It is evident that in an increasingly tertiarized and digitized economy, global productivity will progressively depend on the performance of the productivity of its service branches and less on the rest of the sectors, including the industrial one, which is progressively losing weight as economies continue to tertiarize. In fact, a study by The Economist with data from Centre for Cities shows that British cities with less industrial specialization and more tertiarization are those that present higher productivity. In the same vein, Dani Rodrik has spoken, already talking about “the silent revolution in services” with productivity records much higher than those of industry (Project Syndicate, 9-1-2026). Therefore, it is necessary to place the emphasis on seeing not only how industrial productivity behaves, but above all on understanding how the rest of the service branches are behaving.
If we assume that global productivity depends increasingly on private service branches, the case of the Balearic Islands stands out, with a contribution to the productivity differential with respect to Spain of 7.3, much higher than that of Catalonia and the Basque Country. This result is explained by trade, hospitality, transport, and communications services (Schtc), with 6.9, and, to a lesser extent, by the rest of private services (Spri), with 1.5, while financial services (Sfin) contribute negatively (-1.1). Thus, the Balearic differential is explained by the activities most linked to tourism. This behavior reinforces the importance of analyzing the internal composition of the services sector, and not just its aggregate weight in the economy. In the Balearic case, it is these branches that explain part of the better relative performance of productivity.
Therefore, the relevant question is not whether service activities present higher or lower productivity levels than industry, but whether, based on their tertiary specialization, these activities present positive contributions greater than the regional differential productivity growth compared to the rest of the ACs. And this is the case for Catalonia and especially for the Balearic Islands, whereas it is not the case for the Basque Country, and precisely the largest negative differential of the Basque Country compared to Catalonia occurs in services where the weight of tourism is higher (Schtc).
Where Catalonia has a serious problem regarding the differential behavior of its productivity is in public services, health, and education (Spu), since these activities subtract 3.4 points from the differential productivity growth in Catalonia and -4.6 points in the Balearic Islands, while in the Basque Country they generate a positive contribution of 2.6 points.
With these data, it is difficult to reproach that Catalonia's problem is its tourism specialization. We believe that the diagnosis made by Miquel Barceló, one of the fathers of the 22@ of Barcelona, is more balanced: “(...) It is also not a matter of blaming the tourism sector, as others have done, thanks to which important infrastructures of all kinds have been created and the entire Mediterranean coastline has been developed (...). The answer is, therefore, not to exclude one option or another, but to clearly define which development model one wishes to promote”. (Diario de Mallorca, 28-8-2026).
This is what the civil society of the Balearic Islands wants to do next December 3rd with the Call of the Civil Society Forum on “diversification” and dedicated to the memory of Celestí Alomar, to whom we largely owe the initiative and implementation of the Civil Society Forum of the Balearic Islands.
