This paper reviews the economics of trade policy in financial services, highlighting differences between trade across borders and through commercial presence. Trade liberalization could complement other financial reforms by enhancing the efficiency, quality, and variety of financial services and...

This paper analyzes the links between multilateral, and unilateral financial liberalization, the former represented by the General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS). It provides an overview of the main features of the GATS and what the participants in banking and securities within its...

Distance, as a proxy for trade barriers, is found in many studies to matter even for weightless cross-border financial investments and lending, possibly due to the presence of information asymmetries. Its importance is tested in this paper using exports of all five broad categories of the U.K.'s...

We examine how the development of the digital infrastructure known as the 'India Stack'-including an interoperable payments system, a universal digital ID, and other features-is delivering on the government's objective to expand the provision of financial services. While each individual...

The paper investigates the factors that have influenced WTO members to take on their chosen level of liberalization commitments in the framework of liberalization of trade in financial services and the impact of such commitments on financial sector stability. The most important factors are...

International financial liberalization may alter saving-investment imbalances and patterns of capital flows across countries. In a panel of OECD countries for 1990–96, this study examines how the liberalization of capital movements and financial services trade affects net private capital...

Nonbanks such as central counterparties (CCPs) are a useful lens to see how regulators view the role of the lender-of-last-resort (LOLR). This paper explores the avenues available when a nonbank failure is likely, specifically by considering the options of keeping CCPs afloat. It is argued that...

Using a newly constructed dataset on trade in services for 192 countries from 1970 to 2014, this paper shows that services currently constitute one-fourth of world trade and an increasingly important component of global production. A detailed analysis of patterns and stylized facts reveals that...