Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Crespi G.A. 
Author-Name: Tacsir E. 
Author-Name: Vargas F. 
Author-workplace-name: UNU-MERIT
Title: Innovation and productivity in services: Empirical evidence from Latin America
Abstract: This paper analyses and compares the determinants of innovation in the  service industry and its impact on labour productivity at the firm level  in three countries of Latin America Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay. The  main findings show that, similar to what is observed in the  manufacturing industry, service firms that invest the most in innovation  activities are more likely to introduce changes or improvements in their  production process and/or product mix, and those firms that innovate  have higher labour productivity than non-innovative firms. Size was  found to be a less relevant determinant of innovation in services than  in manufacturing, suggesting that the need for infrastructure and  associated sunk costs are lower in services. Conversely, cooperation was  found to be far more important for innovation in services than in  manufacturing, in line with the more interactive nature of innovation in  services. Yet, large differences in statistical significance and size of  the coefficients of explanatory variables among the countries studied  suggest that the framework conditions where a firm operates have an  important role in innovation decisions.
Keywords: Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes; Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity: General; Economywide Country Studies: Latin America; Caribbean; 
Classification-JEL: O12; O14; O31; O33; O40; O54; .
Series:  Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2014
Number: 069
File-URL: http://pub.maastrichtuniversity.nl/bf076680-a062-4fdd-a8ed-4e48a729162a
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 381771
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2014069