Exporting the intangible: Indiana's global trade isn't just products

Carol O. Rogers

Executive Editor and Director, Indiana Business Research Center, Indiana University Kelley School of Business

Image of every continent with dialogue bubbles with a question mark and the letter i.

Services make up the bulk of Indiana's economy when measured by employment size. Indiana has more than 3 million jobs (based on work location) and 78% of those jobs are in the services sector.

Goods producing, services providing. Those are the two sides of private business.

You make or grow a product, say electric guitar pedals, and export it to consumers anywhere in the world there is demand for that product. Indiana exported more than $4 million in parts for electric musical instruments in 2023 and another $13 million in wind instruments. Overall, Indiana exported more than $56 billion in commodities last year. Drugs, cars and machinery made up the lion’s share of those exports along with agricultural products. Indiana exports an impressive variety of agricultural and manufactured commodities. 

Word cloud showing the top 25 exportable services in Indiana with business services as the largest one.

And then there are services, which can be trickier to track since so many services are interpersonal or geographically constricted. Since service providing is by far the largest part of our economy (see Figure 1 and Figure 2), it is worth taking a stab at quantifying the number of exportable services available from businesses in Indiana (see list). These are things you can’t necessarily put in a box and send around the world, but services do make up the bulk of our economy when measured by employment size. Indiana has more than 3 million jobs (based on work location) and 78% of those jobs are in the services sector (see Figure 4).

Figure 1: Goods-producing employment in Indiana

Line graph showing Indiana's goods-producing employment from 1990 to 2022.

Note: These data are not seasonally adjusted.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (CES)

Figure 2: Service-providing employment in Indiana

Line graph showing Indiana's service-providing employment from 1990 to 2022.

Note: These data are not seasonally adjusted.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (CES)

Figure 3: Indiana goods production as a percent of all employment

Line graph showing Indiana goods production as a percent of total employment from 1990 to 2022.

Note: These data are not seasonally adjusted.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (CES)

Figure 4: Indiana service providing as a percent of all employment

Line graph showing Indiana service providing as a percent of total employment from 1990 to 2022.

Note: These data are not seasonally adjusted.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (CES)

The dollar volume of exported services from Indiana totaled nearly $8 billion in 2022, the latest year of data available (beta from WISERTrade.org). These services included licenses for research and development, business and management consulting and trademark services as well as legal, educational and financial services. California and New York export the most in terms of dollar value to the rest of the world, followed by Texas and Florida. A fair chunk of exported services does include those involved in travel and entertainment, which likely explains a portion of those states’ larger share of exports.

The combined United States’ exports of services are valued at $928 billion – nearly a trillion dollars in services that are exported. California dwarfs pretty much every other state, with a dollar volume of $140 billion in services exports, followed by New York at $120 billion and Texas much further back at $67 billion (see Figure 5). Indiana is in the middle of the pack, ranking 26th with its $7.8 billion in services exports. Surprisingly, perhaps, Kentucky outranks the Hoosier state by two spots (24th) with more than $10 billion in services exports.

Figure 5: Services exports by state in 2022 - % of nationwide total services exports

Map of the United States showing services exports by state as the percent of nationwide total exports in 2022.

Note: This data is available in a beta release.
Source: WISERTrade services exports (beta)

Over the last decade, Indiana’s service-export trajectory has mostly grown, from $5.5 billion in 2012 to $7.8 billion by 2022 (see Figure 6). Unsurprisingly, our services exports dipped by more than a billion dollars in 2020 (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) before climbing to a new peak in 2022. While Indiana is a leader in goods and agricultural exports, the state lags behind other midwestern states in services exports. Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Minnesota and Kentucky all boast services exports between $10 billion and $16 billion. Something to watch, something to learn from.

Figure 6: Indiana’s services exports over time

Column chart showing Indiana's services exports from 2012 to 2022.

Note: This data is available in a beta release.
Source: WISERTrade services exports (beta)

For more information about U.S. international monetary policy and trade, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis provides a wholistic view. The International Trade Administration hones in on trade between and among countries with the United States. And finally, if you would like to look at the scope of traded commodities tracked for import and export, this guidebook is organized in an easy-to-read fashion.