Crossborder trade in health services: Lessons from the European laboratory

Abstract

We find four key lessons that health policymakers and practitioners should be aware of: the potential of services liberalization to incur high transition and transaction costs; the difficulty of reconciling economic and social policy goals and the subsequent high likelihood of backlash; the tendency of rule-based systems to promote policy spillover; and the importance (and difficulty) of early monitoring in order to avoid unwanted policy outcomes. We conclude that continued awareness of new policy developments, coordination of expertise on health and trade and preemptive regulation are vital in order to deal with the expansion of crossborder trade in health services.