The economics of the service sector has recently attracted a large attention. At a macroeconomic level, the discussion has been focused on the issues concerning the relationship between the expansion of the service industry and the potential for a stable and sustained growth. Slow productivity growth, due to the largely non tradable nature of the output, lack of competition due either to regulations or to barriers to entry are among the "bads" sometimes associated with a "service led" growth. On the other hand new working places are created in the service industries at a rate much higher than in the industrial ones. Is a lower rate of technological change and the continuing of inflationary tensions the price to pay for a sustained expansion of employment in the service sector? These are in a nutshell the questions that led CElS (Centre for International Studies on Economic Growth - University of Rome "Tor Vergata") to organize the International Seminar on "The Service Sector: Productivity and Growth" held in Rome in May 1993, whose revised proceedings are published in this volume. The economists and academicians invited to the conference have faced the issues mentioned above from different perspectives, but they concentrated especially on the problems relative to growth and productivity.

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Introductory Remarks.- I Competitiveness and Productivity: The Link Between Manufacturing and Service Sectors.- 1 Producer Services: Their Important Role in Growing Economies.- 1. Alleged Problems with the Growth of the Service Sector.- 2. Productivity in the Canadian Service Sector.- 3. A Taxonomy of Services.- 4. The History of Canadian Service Industries.- 5. Correlation Analysis of Shares.- 6. The Economics of the Consumer and Government Services.- 7. The Economics of Producer Services.- 8. Summary and Conclusions 31 Comment: Paolo Garonna 3.- 2 Externalities and the Linkages Between Trade Sector and Manufacturing.- 1. Introduction.- 2. A Model of Externalities.- 3. Data Sample.- 4. Dynamic Specification and Cointegration.- 5. Estimation.- 6. Results.- 7. Conclusions.- 3 Industrial Prices, Service Prices and Unemployment in Italy and Germany.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Theoretical Model.- 3. Structure and Equations of the Estimated Models.- 4. Model Simulation.- 5. Concluding Remarks 79 Comment: Giovanni Piersanti.- 4 The Growth of Market Service Sector in Italy.- 1. Structural Evolution of the Service Sector over the Last 20 Years.- 2. The Role of Demand Factors.- 3. Acceleration of Service Sector Expansion During the 1980's.- 5 Indirect Productivity of Business Services Through Non-Material Investments.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Measurement.- 3. Some Major Questions.- II International and Intersectoral Differences in Productivity: Catching-up or Divergence?.- 6 Structure and Change in Distribution System: An Analysis of Seven OECD Member Countries.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Distribution in Consumer Markets: The Changing Pattern.- 3. The Implications for Efficiency.- 4. Retailing and Public Policy.- 5. Distribution in Industrial Markets.- Comment: Carlo Pace.- 7 Does Productivity Converge Across Countries and Across Sectors? Empirical Evidences from Eight OECD Countries.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Convergence.- 3. The Database.- 4. Econometric Methodology and Empirical Results.- 8 Productivity Growth in Service and Non-Service Industries: Implications for Convergence.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Convergence.- 3. Structural Adjustment.- 4. Conclusions.- 9 The Comparative Performance of Industrial and Service Firms in the Eighties: An Italian Story.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Measure of Performance.- 3. The Economic Performance.- 4. The Financial Performance.- 5. Some Conclusions.- 10 The Productivity Differential Between Manufacturing and Services in Italy: Technical Progress or Competition Deficit?.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Data.- 3. The Model.- 4. The Results.- 5. Conclusions.