Decades of services trade negotiations have produced a plethora of rules and commitments but limited real liberalization. One reason is a form of "negotiating tunnel vision," which has led to a focus on reciprocal market opening rather than on creating the regulatory preconditions for...

A 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...

The growth of India's manufacturing sector since 1991 has been attributed mostly to trade liberalization and more permissive industrial licensing. This paper demonstrates the significant impact of a neglected factor: India's policy reforms in services. The authors examine the link between those...

This paper estimates how changes in China's exchange rates would affect exports from competitor countries in third-country markets -- in other words, the "spillover effect." The authors use recent theory to develop an identification strategy, with a key role for the competition between China and...

Trade and investment in services are inhibited by a range of policy restrictions, but the best offers so far in the Doha negotiations are on average twice as restrictive as actual policy. They will generate no additional market opening. Regulatory concerns help explain the limited progress. This...

The focus of trade policy has shifted in recent years from economy-wide reductions in tariffs and trade restrictions toward targeted interventions to facilitate trade and promote exports. Most of these latter interventions are based on the new mantra of "aid-for-trade" rather than on hard...

The World Trade Organization has been until recently an effective framework for cooperation because it has continually adapted to changing economic realities. The current Doha Agenda is an aberration because it does not reflect one of the largest shifts in the international economic and trading...

Professional services matter for development in East Africa. Business services, including professional services, are among the most dynamic services sectors; and are a key input for other sectors. Greater use of professional services by East African firms is associated with higher labor...

The current gloom and doom about goods trade has obscured the quiet resilience of services trade. Services account for over one fifth of global cross-border trade, and for some countries such as India and the United States close to a third of all exports. New data on cross-border trade from the...

This volume includes papers that were first presented and discussed at a workshop on 'The Fragmentation of Global Production and Trade in Value- Added: Developing New Measures of Cross Border Trade', held at the World Bank in Washington, DC, on 9 to 10 June, 2011. This publication is structured...