Trade Facilitation in Services : Concepts and Empirical Importance

van der Marel, Erik ; Shepherd, Ben

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SERVICES TRADE;    TRADE IN SERVICES;    TRADE RESTRICTIONS;    RESTRICTIVENESS;    GOVERNANCE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-9234
RP-ID  :  WPS9234

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines the concept of tradefacilitation in services from the perspective of the recentliterature on the determinants of services trade. The aim isto conceptualize trade facilitation in this area as adimension of international integration beyond the baselinerestrictiveness of policy, as captured by indicators ofdiscriminatory market access. The analysis focuses on therole of governance structures, institutions, andtransparency in shaping the environment for trading inservices internationally. In addition to examining thesefactors, the paper provides some novel empirical estimates.Using a gravity model, the analysis finds that the advalorem equivalents of common measures of institutionalquality, governance, and transparency are larger relative tomeasures of sheer policy restrictiveness, frequently asignificant multiple. The paper also shows that the advalorem equivalents of data restrictions are of similarmagnitude to policy restrictions in services. The conclusionis that framing discussions of trade facilitation inservices around the concept of reducing trade costs --specifically those stemming from areas where improvement isneeded in governance, institutions, and transparency --could potentially bring significant benefits in increasedintegration of the global services economy.