The evolution of services trade policy since the Great Recession

Ingo Borchert, Joscelyn Magdeleine, Juan A. Marchetti and Aaditya Mattoo

No ERSD-2020-02, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: Are changes in services markets provoking reform, restrictions, or inertia? To address this question, we draw upon a new World Bank-WTO Services Trade Policy Database (STPD) to analyse the services trade policies of 68 economies in 23 subsectors across five broad areas - financial services, telecommunications, distribution, transportation and professional services, respectively. Policy measures are quantified into a Services Trade Restrictions Index (STRI) following a novel, consistent and transparent framework. Building on these innovations, the paper identifies patterns of services trade policies across sectors and economies, as well as secular trends over the past decade. Higher income economies are still more open on average than developing economies, but the chronology of reform differs markedly across sectors. In telecommunications and finance, we see convergence towards greater openness driven by liberalization in the previously more restrictive developing economies. In the hitherto universally protected transport and professional services, we see policy divergence as some higher income economies pioneer reform. But while explicit restrictions are being lowered in most services sectors - in contrast to recent developments in goods trade policy - we also see greater recourse to regulatory scrutiny, especially in higher income economies. These measures could reflect legitimate prudential or security concerns, but they could also reflect recourse to less transparent forms of protection.

Keywords: services trade policy; investment; STRI; trade restrictions; quantification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F14 F23 L80 O24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: The Evolution of Services Trade Policy Since the Great Recession (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd202002

DOI: 10.30875/ba44f0d7-en

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