Services policies in transition economies: on the European Union and the World Trade Organization as commitment mechanisms

Felix Eschenbach and Bernard Hoekman

No 3951, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The authors analyze the extent to which the EU-15 and 16 transition economies used the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to commit to service sector policy reforms. They compare GATS commitments with the evolution of actual policy stances over time. While there is substantial variance across transition economies on both actual policies and GATS commitments, the authors find an inverse relationship between the depth of GATS commitments and the"quality"of actual services policies as assessed by the private sector. In part this can be explained by the fact that the prospect of EU accession makes GATS less relevant as a commitment device for a subset of transition economies. But for many of the non-EU accession candidates, the WTO seems to be a weak commitment device. One explanation is that the small size of the markets concerned generates weak external enforcement incentives. The authors'findings suggest greater collective investment by WTO members in monitoring and the need for transparency to increase the benefits of WTO membership to small countries.

Keywords: Trade and Services; Trade Law; World Trade Organization; Trade and Regional Integration; Free Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-06-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... ered/PDF/wps3951.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3951

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().