The costs of regulatory barriers to trade in services
New estimates of ad valorem tariff equivalents
This paper presents new estimates of policy-induced trade costs in five services sectors
for 46 countries. Results demonstrate the significant untapped economic potential
of multilateral, plurilateral, and unilateral services trade liberalisation. Even
though services trade has more than tripled in the last two decades, the results show
that trade costs are still high. The results are not only interesting in and of themselves,
but they can also be used as input for further analysis on the economic benefits from
different scenarios regarding the dismantling of barriers to trade in services. This
paper exploits recent advances related to the measurement of services barriers in
the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI).
Published on July 08, 2020
In series:OECD Trade Policy Papersview more titles