Abstract

In the spirit of the famous aphorism associated to Galileo's thought, the aim of this paper is to offer a simple, updated balance on the impacts and effects, in terms of growth and development, associated to service sector in the economic systems. Nowadays, service industries account for an increasing share of value added, employment, and capacity of redistributing resources that affect countries' performance. The role of innovation, the environmental changes keen on a less mass production, the de-materialisation of final productions are relevant aspects in a changing world. This is particularly true in the scenario of our recent recession which pushed firms to identify new processes of organisation of the ways goods and services are produced. Thus, globalisation and the continuous growth of the standards of living emphasised a larger role of services in place, sometimes in addition to, the manufacturing activities. The potential of competitiveness and growth of the modern economies is therefore strongly affected by the evolving path taking place in the service sector, both in the business related services and in the personal care ones.