Introduction
“The service sector is increasingly important in Latin America, accounting currently for more than 60 percent of the continent’s GDP (IADB, 2012). However, despite its size, services is the sector with the largest productivity gap with respect to the technological frontier, namely the US (IADB, 2010). On the other hand there is vast evidence that innovation activities have extremely high social returns in developing economies, making it possible to transform these activities in a powerful engine of economic growth. Thus, boosting innovation in services seems to be central in order to improve the performance of Latin American economies. This is doubly important given the significant share of employment hired in the sector…”