The status of public services is one of the most hotly debated issues surrounding the GATS. There are two approaches to distinguish such services from any other services: an institutional approach that focuses on the legal and institutional conditions governing supply (e.g. ownership status,...

There are various conceivable links between services liberalization and poverty reduction, including the efficiency effects associated with increased competition in intermediate (infrastructural) services, income transfers generated by workers moving abroad, or the mobilization of private...