1,721,189 research outputs found
Remarks by Aaditya Mattoo
No full textThank you very much, Gary. Thank you for inviting me today, Julie. I'm going to make four quick points—first of all, that the backlash has a certain sense of historical inevitability but it's fortunately very narrow in scope. Second, that it's not just against trade, which is the conventional wisdom. It's also against misplaced redistribution. Third, that if we are going to aim for more inclusive growth, in the sense that Oonagh spoke about, we need more, not less, globalization. And we also need more, not less, international cooperation, but it will need to take new innovative forms.</jats:p
Landlocked or policy locked ? how services trade protection deepens economic isolation
Full text linkA new cross-country database on services policy reveals a perverse pattern: many landlocked countries restrict trade in the very services that connect them with the rest of the world. On average, telecommunications and air-transport policies are significantly more restrictive in landlocked countries than elsewhere. The phenomenon is most starkly visible in Sub-Saharan Africa and is associated with lower levels of political accountability. This paper finds evidence that these policies lead to more concentrated market structures and more limited access to services than these countries would otherwise have, even after taking into account the influence of geography and incomes, and the possibility that policy is endogenous. Even moderate liberalization in these sectors could lead to an increase of cellular subscriptions by 7 percentage points and a 20-percent increase in the number of flights. Policies in other countries, industrial and developing alike, also limit competition in international transport services. Hence,"trade-facilitating"investments under various"aid-for-trade"initiatives are likely to earn a low return unless they are accompanied by meaningful reform in these services sectors.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Markets and Market Access,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Economic Theory&Research,ICT Policy and Strategies
Services trade and growth
Full text linkThe competitiveness of firms in open economies is increasingly determined by access to low-cost and high-quality producer services - telecommunications, transport and distribution services, financial intermediation, etc. This paper discusses the role of services in economic growth, focusing in particular on channels through which openness to trade in services may increase productivity at the level of the economy as a whole, industries and the firm. The authors explore what recent empirical work suggests could be done to enhance comparative advantage in the production and export of services and how to design policy reforms to open services markets to greater foreign participation in a way that ensures not just greater efficiency but also greater equity in terms of access to services.Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,ICT Policy and Strategies,Emerging Markets
Criss-Crossing Globalization: Uphill Flows of Skill-Intensive Goods and Foreign Direct Investment
Full text linkThis paper documents an unusual and possibly significant phenomenon: the export of skills, embodied in goods, services or capital from poorer to richer countries. We first present a set of stylized facts. Using a measure which combines the sophistication of a country’s exports with the average income level of destination countries, we show that the performance of a number of developing countries,notably China, Mexico and South Africa, matches that of much more advanced countries, such as Japan, Spain and USA. Creating a new combined dataset on FDI (covering greenfield investment as well as mergers and acquisitions) we show that flows of FDI to OECD countries from developing countries like Brazil, India, Malaysia and South Africa as a share of their GDP, are as large as flows from countries like Japan, Korea and the US. Then, taking the work of Hausmann et al. (2007) as a point of departure, we suggest that it is not just the composition of exports but their destination that matters. In both cross-sectional and panel regressions, with a range of controls, we find that a measure of uphill flows of sophisticated goods is significantly associated with better growth performance. These results suggest the need for a deeper analysis of whether development benefits might derive not from deifying comparative advantage but from defying it.foreign direct investment; globalization; skill flow; economic development
Trade and International Transport Services: An Analytical Framework
Full text linkInternational Transport Services (ITS) play an important role in influencing international trade flows. This paper develops an analytical framework in which ITS costs are endogenously determined. It shows that ITS sector liberalization foster international trade very much the same way tariff liberalization does. From a political economy viewpoint, a unilateral liberalization of the sector may not always be politically feasible, and a multilateral agreement can help prop up support for reform. It is further argued that deregulation and competition policy reform are more likely to be feasible if undertaken jointly. (JEL F12, F23, L91)Trade Facilitation, Transport Services, International Negotiations
Financial Services Liberalisation in Transition Countries and the Role of the WTO
Full text linkWhile a bulk of economic theoretical and empirical research deals with various aspects of financial liberalisation, there is far less research devoted to the measurement of financial liberalisation. In this paper we calculate an index of financial liberalisation in 18 transition countries in the Central, Eastern and South-East Europe (CESE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This index was previously developed in works of Aaditya Mattoo (1999) to measure financial liberalisation that the WTO member countries have committed to. We make a slight modification to scaling to take into account the specific aspects of CESE and CIS countries and also apply the index to a non-WTO member (Serbia) using its currently applied regime. In this paper we will examine the influence of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) framework on liberalisation commitments in financial services sector in the target countries.Financial services, Financial liberalisation, Transition, WTO
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The World Trade Organization and financial stability: the balance between liberalisation and regulation in the GATs
Full text linkThe WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services and its Annex on Financial Services provide the international legal framework for the regulation of cross-border trade in financial services. This paper analyses some of the main provisions of the GATS and the Annex on Financial Services to determine its impact on domestic financial regulation and whether the GATS framework can achieve its objectives of liberalising international trade in financial services while allowing states to maintain adequate domestic regulatory institutions. The paper argues that the GATS provides a flexible framework for states to negotiate liberalisation commitments while allowing sufficient domestic regulatory authority to achieve financial stability objectives. The extent to which states can depart from their GATS obligations to achieve regulatory objectives has become the source of academic debate and policy interest. Although the WTO has played little or no role in the financial regulation debate, the GATS contains certain disciplines that could potentially have significant implications for limiting regulatory discretion over financial markets. The paper suggests that the Doha Development Agenda should address some of these issues as they relate to the regulation of cross-border trade in financial services. The role of the WTO in this area raises important issues regarding the institutional design of financial regulation and related issues of global financial governance
Assessing the potential benefit of trade facilitation : A global perspective
Full text linkThe relationships between trade facilitation, trade flows, and capacity building are complex and challenging to assess, both empirically and in implementation. The authors measure and estimate the relationship between trade facilitation and trade flows across 75 countries in global trade, considering four important categories: port efficiency, customs environment, regulatory environment, and service sector infrastructure. A gravity model is employed that accounts for bilateral trade flows in manufactured goods in 2000-01 between the 75 countries, using traditional factors such as GDP, distance, language, and trade areas, and is augmented by the trade facilitation measures in the four categories for each country. The results suggest that both imports and exports for a country and for the world will increase with improvements in these trade facilitation measures. Potential gains from trade facilitation reforms are predicted by using the estimated parameters. The gains from trade facilitation are presented by comparing the gains across geographical regions and trade facilitation categories, and by domestic and partner improvements. The total gain in trade flow in manufacturing goods from trade facilitation improvements in all the four areas is estimated to be $377 billion. All regions gain in imports and exports. Most regions gain more in terms of exports than imports, in large part through increasing exports to the OECD market. The most important ingredient in getting these gains, particularly to the OECD market, is the country's own trade facilitation efforts. The detailed presentation of the results of the analysis may help inform policy decisions and capacity building choices.Transport and Trade Logistics,Trade Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Common Carriers Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Common Carriers Industry,Transport and Trade Logistics,Trade Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies
Trade Facilitation in Asia and the Pacific: Which Policies and Measures affect Trade Costs the Most?
Full text linkThis paper presents findings from an initial analysis of new non-tariff trade cost estimates and their determinants, based on a bilateral database of comprehensive trade cost maintained by ESCAP. Results of the non-tariff policy-related trade costs modeling exercise strongly suggest that improving port efficiency (liner shipping connectivity) and access to information and communication technology facilities is essential to reducing trade costs.trade facilitation, trade costs, measures, policy, tariff, non-tariff, port efficiency, liner shipping connectivity, logistics, information and communication technology, information technology, public-private partnership, business environment, ASEAN, China, India, Japan, Korea
Competitive implications of cross-border banking
Full text linkThis paper reviews the recent literature on cross-border banking, with a focus on policy implications. Cross-border banking has increased sharply in recent decades, particularly in the form of entry, and has affected the development of financial systems, access to financial services, and stability. Reviewing the empirical literature, the author finds much, although not uniform, evidence that cross-border banking supports the development of an efficient and stable financial system that offers a wide access to quality financial services at low cost. But as better financial systems have more cross-border banking, the relationship between cross-border banking and competitiveness has to be carefully judged. While developing countries have some special conditions, provided a minimum degree of oversight is in place, they experience effects similar to industrial countries. There are some questions, though, on the effects of cross-border banking on lending based on softer information and on stability. Relevant experiences from capital markets show that the degree of cross-border financial activities can affect local market sustainability and there can be path dependency when opening up to cross-border competition. Reviewing the fast changing landscape of financial services provision, the author argues that cross-border banking highlights the increased importance of competition policy in financial services provision. This competition policy cannot be traditional, institutional based, but will need to resemble that used in other network industries. Furthermore, with globalization accelerating, competition policy will need to be global, supported by greater cross-border institutional collaboration and using the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) process and the disciplines of the World Trade Organization. GATS can be of special value to developing countries as it provides a binding, pro-competition framework that has proven more difficult to establish otherwise.Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,Knowledge Economy,Education for the Knowledge Economy
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