International Provision of Trade Services, Trade, and Fragmentation

Deardorff, Alan V.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AIRCRAFT;    AIRLINES;    APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY;    CARGO;    CARRIERS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2548
RP-ID  :  WPS2548

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The author examines the special rolethat trade liberalization in services industries can play instimulating trade in both services, and goods. Internationaltrade in goods requires inputs from such trade services astransportation, insurance, and finance, for example.Restrictions on services across borders, and within foreigncountries add costs, and barriers to international trade.Liberalizing trade in services could also facilitate tradein goods, providing more benefits than one might expect fromanalysis merely of the services trade. To emphasize thepoint, the author notes that the benefits for trade arearguably enhanced by the phenomenon of fragmentation. Themore that production processes become split acrosslocations, with the fragments tied together, and coordinatedby various trade services, the greater the gains fromreductions in the costs of services. The incentives for suchfragmentation can be greater across countries, than withincountries, because of the greater differences in factorprices, and technologies. But the service costs ofinternational fragmentation can also be larger, especiallyif regulations, and restrictions impede the internationalprovision of services. As a result, trade liberalization inservices can stimulate the fragmentation of production ofboth goods, and services, thus increasing internationaltrade, and the gains from trade even further. Sincefragmentation seems to characterize an increasing portion ofworld specialization, the importance of serviceliberalization is growing apace.