Deepening the EU’s Single Market for Services

Christian Ebeke, Jan-Martin Frie and Louise Rabier

No 2019/269, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: The services sector is increasingly important for the euro area economy, but productivity growth in the sector has stalled over the past two decades. Remaining barriers to cross-border trade in services within the EU Single Market contribute to this weak performance. Our empirical analysis suggests that slow progress in tackling these barriers is associated with political economy factors such as weak government support in parliaments, low government efficiency and high markups. To remove the cross-border restrictions on services trade, we suggest combining incentives such as financial support, technical assistance and improved communication on barriers with more effective enforcement.

Keywords: WP; government; service trade restrictiveness; EU KLEMS; EU work force; EU Services Directive; euro area services sector; STRI EU; Services sector; Trade in services; Legal support in revenue administration; Productivity; Trade liberalization; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2019-12-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
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