Publication: Liberalizing Trade in Services : A Survey
Loading...
Published
2006-10
ISSN
Date
2012-06-26
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Since the mid 1980s a substantial amount of research has been undertaken on trade in services. Much of this is inspired by the World Trade Organization or regional trade agreements, especially the European Union, but an increasing number of papers focus on the impacts of services sector liberalization. This paper surveys the literature, focusing on contributions that investigate the determinants of international trade and investment in services, the potential gains from greater trade (and liberalization), and efforts to cooperate to achieve such liberalization through trade agreements. It concludes that there is increasing evidence that services liberalization is an important source of potential welfare gains, but relatively little research has been done that can inform the design of international cooperation-both trade agreements and development assistance-so as to more effectively promote development objectives.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Hoekman, Bernard. 2006. Liberalizing Trade in Services : A Survey. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4030. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9004 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Climate and Social Sustainability in Fragility, Conflict, and Violence Contexts(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)Climate change is widely recognized as a driver of violent conflict, but its broader social effects remain less understood. Ignoring these dimensions risks a vicious cycle where climate policies might undermine socially just adaptation. Evidence is still limited on how climate shocks influence political participation, trust, or migration. This paper helps fill that gap by examining links between climate change, conflict, and social sustainability, with a focus on inclusion, resilience, cohesion, and legitimacy. Using secondary data from 2019–24, the study applies simple correlation-based methods to test three hypotheses on the nature, severity, and composition of these associations. The analysis combines multiple climate impact measures, new conflict classifications, recent social sustainability frameworks, and controls for population and geography. The results reveal strong correlations—not causation—between climate events and contexts of fragility, conflict, and violence. Climate impacts are most pronounced in both national and subnational conflict settings. The study also finds robust links between fragility, conflict, and violence and low levels of social sustainability, reflecting its role as both a driver and consequence of conflict. Some dimensions—such as violent events and insecurity—appear weaker in areas most affected by climate shocks. Two of the hypotheses are supported, and one remains inconclusive.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Institutional Capacity for Policy Implementation: An Analytical Framework(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)State capacity is an important prerequisite for policy implementation, yet at the country level it is difficult to measure, assess, and reform. This paper proposes a focus on institutional capacity: the ability of public institutions to implement the specific policy mandates for which they are responsible. Based on a review of existing literature, the paper defines the different dimensions that compose institutional capacity and groups them into two cross-cutting categories: organizational dimensions (personnel, financial resources, information systems, and management practices) and governance dimensions (transparency, independence, and accountability). The paper proposes measures for organizational and governance dimensions using existing data, shows intra-institutional variation of these measures within countries, and discusses how new data could be collected for better measurement of these concepts. Finally, the paper illustrates how the framework can be used to diagnose the sources of common problems related to weak policy implementation.Publication South Africa’s Fragmented Cities: The Unequal Burden of Labor Market Frictions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-08)Using high-resolution administrative, census, and satellite data, this paper shows that South African cities are characterized by spatial mismatches between where people live and where jobs are located, relative to 20 global peers. Areas within 5 kilometers of commercial centers have 9,300 fewer residents per square kilometer than expected, which is 60 percent below the global median. Poor, dense neighborhoods are most affected. In Johannesburg, a 10-percentile increase in distance from the nearest business hub corresponds to a 3.7-percentile drop in asset wealth (a proxy of household wellbeing) and 4.9-percentile drop in employment. In Cape Town, the declines are 4.0 and 3.7 percentiles, respectively. Employment is 87 percent lower in the poorest decile than the richest in Johannesburg and 61 percent lower in Cape Town. These findings suggest that South Africa’s spatial organization of people and economic activity constrains agglomeration and reinforces inequality. This methodology provides a scalable and standardized data-driven framework to analyze spatial accessibility and agglomeration frictions in complex, data-constrained urban systems.Publication Investment in Emerging and Developing Economies(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)The world faces a pressing challenge to meet key development objectives amid slowing growth and rising macroeconomic and geopolitical risks. With the number of job seekers rising rapidly, infrastructure shortfalls continuing to be large, and climate costs mounting, the case for a significant investment push has never been stronger. Yet the capacity to respond in many emerging markets and developing economies has eroded. Since the global financial crisis, investment growth has slowed to about half its pace in the 2000s, with both public and private investment weakening. Foreign direct investment inflows—a critical source of capital, technology, and managerial know-how—have also fallen sharply and become increasingly concentrated, leaving low-income countries with only a marginal share. The risks of further retrenchment are significant, as trade tensions, policy uncertainty, and elevated debt levels continue to weigh on investment. Reigniting momentum will require ambitious domestic reforms to strengthen institutions, rebuild macro-fiscal stability, and deepen trade and investment integration—the foundations of a supportive business climate. At the same time, international cooperation is indispensable. A renewed commitment to a predictable system of cross-border trade and investment flows, combined with scaled-up financial support and sustained technical assistance, is essential to help emerging markets and developing economies—especially low-income countries and economies in fragile and conflict situations—bridge financing gaps and implement the domestic reforms needed to restore investment as an engine of growth, jobs, and development.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication CGE Modeling of Market Access in Services(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06)This paper examines how the applied multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) literature has moved into quantication of the impacts of greater market access for services. This includes discussion of multi-sector linkages to the service sector, as well both measuring barriers to trade and investment (generally with a mix of firm surveys, price comparisons, and econometrics), and how changes in these barriers, however measured, have been implemented in the CGE literature. Three challenges are highlighted. The first is identification of how trade in services takes place and how market access is therefore affected by policy. The second is to find data sufficiently robust for modeling purposes. The third, linked to the data problem, is to quantify the barriers to be examined. Significant progress has been made in modeling foreign direct investment and linking this to productivity, which turns out to be important. The paper also provides an example of modeling productivity linkages to openness and domestic regulation, with an applied CGE model of Italy. This illustrates cross-sector linkages and the integration of economic data and policy measures to define service sector experiments. Priorities for future research include better modeling of market structure, the linkages between sectors and the complementarities between different modes of supplying services.Publication Shaping Future GATS Rules for Trade in Services(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-04)The new round of negotiations has begun with a mechanical sense of "since we said we would, therefore we must," says the author. To make the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) more effective ay liberalization, the author suggests improving the agreement's rules, countries' specific commitments, and the negotiating methodology: 1) Wasteful regulations, and entry restrictions pervade trade in services. Unlike the GATT, the GATS has created no hierarchy of instruments of protection. It may be possible to create a legal presumption in favor of instruments (such as fiscal measures) that provide protection more efficiently. 2) Many countries have taken advantage of the GATS to create a more secure trading environment, by making legally binding commitments to market access. The credibility of reform would increase with wider commitments to maintain current levels of openness, or to increase access in the future. 3) Multilateral rules on domestic regulations can help promote, and consolidate domestic regulatory reform, even when the rules are designed primarily to prevent the erosion of market access for foreign providers. The pro-competitive principles developed for basic communications, could be extended to other network-based services sectors, such as transport (terminals and infrastructure), and energy services (distribution networks). The "necessity test" instituted for accounting services, could be applied to instruments in other sectors (so that doctors judged competent in one jurisdiction, wouldn't have to be retrained for another, for example). 4) Anticompetitive practices that fall outside the jurisdiction of national competition law, may be important in such sectors as maritime, air transport, and communications services. Strengthened multilateral rules are needed to reassure small countries with weak enforcement capacity, that the gains from liberalization will not be appropriated by international cartels. 5) Explicit departures from the most-favored-nation rule matter most in such sectors as maritime transport, audiovisual services, and air transport services - which have been excluded from key GATS disciplines. Implicit discrimination can be prevented by developing rules to ensure the non-discriminatory allocation of quotas, and maintaining the desirable openness of the GATS provision on mutual recognition agreements. 6) Reciprocity must play a greater role in negotiations, if the GATS is to advance liberalization beyond measures taken independently.Publication International Tradability Indices for Services(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11)This paper uses a theoretically grounded model of international trade to estimate the cross-border tradability of services. The resulting indices cover up to 99 countries and ten sectors. The results show that information and communications technology capital and legal institutions are particularly important determinants of a country's ability to successfully export services. The tradability indices are strongly correlated with outcome indicators, such as trade shares of individual countries. In addition, they are strongly correlated with important inputs, including country productivity and size, factor endowments, trade costs, and regulatory measures. In particular, the results suggest that a more restrictive regulatory environment significantly reduces the international tradability of services.Publication The Data Chase : What's Out There on Trade Costs and Nontariff Barriers?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-04)Trade costs and nontariff barriers are at the forefront of discussions on competitiveness and expanding trade opportunities for developing countries. This paper provides a summary overview of data and indicators relevant to these issues and has been informed by work underway at the World Bank on trade facilitation over the past several years to catalogue data sets and indicators. Although there has been progress in expanding data sets and developing policy-relevant indicators on trade costs and barriers, much more is needed. In order to assess progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, evaluating the impact of development projects, and whether meeting Aid for Trade goals will be met, for example, a dedicated and expansive new effort to collect and assess data is needed. This paper attempts to highlight gaps in data on trade costs and provides insight into the type of new data that might be developed in the future.Publication Estimating Trade Flows, Describing Trade Relationships, and Identifying Barriers to Cross-Border Trade Between Cameroon and Nigeria(Washington, DC, 2013-05-07)Cameroon and Nigeria share a common border of nearly 1,700km and both countries have strong historical and cultural ties. However, the partnership between the two countries has had its difficult periods, most recently when the relationship turned hostile over the disputed Bakassi Peninsula, and economic linkages between the economies remain limited. Expanding trade between the two countries could play a critical role in accelerating economic development and regional integration by opening up new markets for producers, and allowing them to benefit from economies of scale. This will require reducing barriers to cross-border trade, allowing increased trade flows to reach the larger market, and permitting private sector producers to increase the scale of their activities. Removing barriers to trade between the two neighbors is likely to benefit particularly relatively remote areas of both countries. The study finds that regulatory and security barriers at the border and along the road remain key impediments to trade. The remainder of this report proceeds as follows. Section one describes drivers for cross border trade such as historical relations, economic factors, and the policy environment. The next section describes the reality of trade flows by describing existing trade corridors and estimating current trade flows. Section three describes how goods are actually traded across borders between the two countries, and how different actors are involved. Section four describes the barriers to trade, and identifies which barriers are most important. Section five describes the potential for increasing trade. Section six summarizes the findings and presents prioritized recommendations for policy reform.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication How Does the Progressivity of Taxes and Government Transfers Impact People’s Willingness to Pay Tax?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09)This paper examines how the progressivity of taxes and government transfers impacts people’s willingness to pay tax through a randomized survey experiment with over 30,000 respondents across eight developing countries. Respondents increased (decreased) their willingness to pay taxes when they received accurate information that taxes in their country are progressive (not progressive). These effects were predominantly driven by respondents in cases where the information they received was counter to their prior beliefs and/or consistent with their preferences. These results suggest changes in policies that increase (decrease) the progressivity of tax systems may also lead to increases (decreases) in tax compliance.Publication World Bank Annual Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-28)This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.Publication Kolkata for Mother and Child : A Case Study(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003)This is a documentation of effective partnership that helped to improve Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) outcomes for the urban poor in Kolkata, India. This partnership was supported by the IDA financed (US$ 71.4 million) Family Welfare Urban Slums Project. The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) implemented the project using a Credit of about US$17 million. A total of 3.8 million urban poor (family income less than US$ 32 per month) from three municipal corporations (Howrah and Chandan Nagar, and part of Kolkata), and 37 smaller municipalities benefited from this partnership. The project provided basic community outreach, as well as facility based Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) services, including counseling to the urban poor. Subsequently, nonbeneficiaries (above poverty line) also received services on payment of costs at lower-than-market rate. This model has subsequently been extended to 20 more cities in the state of West Bengal with support from the Department for International Development (DFID) and IDA.Publication Ethiopia Economic Update, November 2012(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11)Since 2004 (Ethiopian Fiscal Year (EFY) 1997), Ethiopia has experienced strong and generally broad-based real economic growth of around 10.6 percent on average between then and 2011. Growth over the last nine years was far beyond the growth rates recorded in aggregate terms for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which on average only reached 5.2 percent, less than half of Ethiopia's average real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate during that period. Inspired by the East Asian experiences for a comparison of selected indicators and policies of Ethiopia and China/Korea), growth was induced through a mix of factors including agricultural modernization, the development of new export sectors, strong global commodity demand, and government-led development investments. The initial double digits growth rates have now manifested slightly lower but remain at high single-digit levels. The economy is expected to stabilize at around seven to eight percent in 2012, largely owing to improved performance in the agriculture sector. GDP growth is likely to stay around that margin up until 2016 (EFY 2008) driven by rising foreign investment and exports (Economist Intelligence Unit 2012). High inflation persists, but is on a slightly decreasing trend. Economic growth brought with it positive trends in reducing poverty, in both urban and rural areas. Ethiopia follows a strategy of increasing exports to facilitate growth. This is appropriate given the currently limited size of its domestic market and it is consistent with the development experience of some of the recently successful countries, particularly in East Asia. Export of goods growth is to a good extent driven by volume growth across a variety of product groups, which indicates that this growth is a result of recent efforts to increase and diversify the export base. Overall export and import developments result in a significantly increased trade deficit by 43 percent, up from US$5.5 billion in 2010/11 to US$7.9 billion.