Abstract
AbstractThis paper presents new data on services trade regulation for 46 countries in 22 services sectors over 6 years (2014–2019). The data consist of qualitative information which is scored and weighted to produce composite indices. They cover market access and national treatment restrictions with respect to all GATS modes of supply, but also behind the border domestic regulation such as licensing, non‐transparent regulatory procedures and competition policy. The database is updated annually. The trade restrictiveness indices (STRIs) are significantly correlated with services trade flows, but also with the performance of the sectors subject to the restrictions including logistics performance indicators, interest spreads, density of ATMs and secure servers, broadband penetration and outcomes such as legal rights and the time to resolve insolvency.
Highlights
Services have always been an important part of international trade, they were brought into international trade agreements only with the Canada US Free Trade Agreement in 1991 followed by North American Free Trade Agreement 3 years later
With a full set of STRI indicators for 6 years, which overlaps with time series of bilateral services trade data for 3 years, the problem of identifying the trade effects of services trade restrictions has eased as our regression results in Table 10 suggest
There is a strong negative association between the services trade restrictions and performance in the sectors directly affected by the restrictions
Summary
Services have always been an important part of international trade, they were brought into international trade agreements only with the Canada US Free Trade Agreement in 1991 followed by North American Free Trade Agreement 3 years later. This paper presents the database and services trade restrictiveness indices, hereafter STRI, developed by the OECD It currently covers 46 countries, 22 sectors and 6 years. The regulatory framework for financial services often requires the establishment of a commercial presence and the grant of a local license with subsequent supervision by local authorities While such a procedure is not trade restrictive per se, best practice implies full neutrality of the banking supervisor, transparency and non-discrimination in the allocation of licenses, as well as sufficient conditions for fair competition between foreign and local banks, including state-owned banks. Other policy areas cover sector-specific measures related to the use of foreign firm names and barriers to competition resulting from regulations on fee-setting
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