Abstract
There is a broad consensus among economists that innovation and technological change have been key in promoting growth in advanced capitalist economies. However, political scientists have paid less attention to this important phenomenon. This is particularly true when it comes to the role that good governance indicators play in fostering, or hindering, science and technology development, which is at the heart of innovation. Cross-national, empirical analyses on this topic regarding Latin America have been missing. In this article we address this gap in the scholarly debate by showing how poor governance standards penalize Latin America in terms of technological innovation. This, in turn, partly explain the inability of this region to keep up with other parts of the world in this regard, with predictable negative socioeconomic consequences for the future.