Emerging economic constraints on transborder data flows

The phenomena of transborder data flows have emerged from rapid technical changes in the area of computer communications. Attendant upon this, new economic opportunities are inducing institutional changes designed to modify the manner in which economic gains are to be partitioned. This has, in turn, led to government actions that go beyond conventional allocative and redistributive roles of governmental intervention. This paper discusses some of the welfare implications of 'protectionism' that have appeared on the international scene. By so doing we may begin to anticipate and perhaps circumvent the economic inefficiencies of barriers to trade involving data flows.