World Bank Policy Research Working Papers
Выпуск N2548 за 2001 год
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Alan V. Deardorff
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2001.
No. 2548.
By reducing the costs of such trade services as transport, insurance, and finance,
liberalizing trade in services can generate benefits in the markets for every kind
of trade they facilitate. It can also stimulate the fragmentation of production of
both goods and services, thus increasing international trade and the gains from trade
even further.
Deardorff examines the special role that trade liberalization in services industries
can play in stimulating trade in both services and goods. International trade in
goods requires inputs from such trade services as transportation, insurance, and
finance, for example.
Restrictions on services across borders and within foreign countries add costs and
barriers to international trade. Liberalizing trade in services could also facilitate
trade in goods, providing more benefits than one might expect from analysis merely
of the services trade.
To emphasize the point, Deardorff notes that the benefits for trade are arguably
enhanced by the phenomenon of fragmentation. The more that production processes become
split across locations, with the fragments tied together and coordinated by various
trade services, the greater the gains from reductions in the costs of services.
The incentives for such fragmentation can be greater across countries than within
countries because of the greater differences in factor prices and technologies. But
the service costs of international fragmentation can also be larger, especially if
regulations and restrictions impede the international provision of services. As a
result, trade liberalization in services can stimulate the fragmentation of production
of both goods and services, thus increasing international trade and the gains from
trade even further.
Since fragmentation seems to characterize an increasing portion of world specialization,
the importance of service liberalization is growing apace.

