Gary Akehurst is Professor and Head of the Department of Catering and Hotel Management, Dorset Institute of Higher Education, UK. He is also a founding editor of The Service Industries Journal. Jean Gadrey is an economist at the University of Lilie I, France. Dr Gadrey is the author of several papers and books on services economics; the editor of the journal Cahiers Lillois d'Economie et de Sociologie and the director of a research group on service economics (ERMES).

• Editors' Preface The Economics of Services: An Introduction Part One: Households and Services: Micro-Economic and Micro-Social Approaches, On the Substitution of Goods and Services; Only So Many Hours in a Day: Time Constraints, Labour Pools and Demand for Consumer Services; Time Use and the Dynamics of the Service Sector; Part Two: Macro-Economic and General Approaches, Reflections on some Basic Concepts for Services Economics; Services Markets and the Economics of Social Interaction; Development of the Service Sector: A Critical Survey of Macro-Economic Models; The New Deal in Services - A Challenge for Europe; From the Rigidity of Supply to the Service Economy; The Double Dynamics of Services.