Can regionalism do what multilateralism has so far failed to do?promote greater openness of services markets? Although previous research has pointed to the wider and deeper legal commitments under regional agreements as proof that it can, no previous study has assessed the impact of such...

A new Services Trade Restrictions Database collects and makes publicly available information on services trade policy assembled in a comparable manner across 103 countries, five sectors (telecommunications, finance, transportation, retail and professional services) and the key modes of service...

Surprisingly little is known about policies that affect international trade in services. Previous analyses have focused on policy commitments made by countries in international agreements but these commitments do not in many cases reflect actual policy. This paper describes a new initiative to...

Better information on how services policies vary across economies and sectors over time would improve the empirical analysis of their impact. This paper describes the Services Trade Policy Database (STPD), a joint initiative by the World Bank and the WTO Secretariat, which builds on a database...