Singapore has been a powerful magnet for foreign direct investment and in recent years has also made significant investments abroad, especially in developing countries and increasingly in services. This paper analyzes the determinants of Singapore's investment using the Knowledge-Capital Model...

This paper presents an analytical framework to encompass contributions to the literature on equity in climate change, and highlights the consequences—in terms of future emissions allocations—of different approaches to equity. These include: progressive cuts relative to historic levels; equal...

The initial occupational placements of male immigrants in the U.S. labor market vary significantly by country of origin even when education and other individual factors are taken into account. Does the heterogeneity persist over time? Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 censuses, this paper...

This paper documents an unusual and possibly significant phenomenon: the export of skills, embodied in goods, services or capital from poorer to richer countries. A set of stylized facts is presented. Using a measure which combines the sophistication of a country’s exports with the...

type="main" xml:id="twec12117-abs-0001" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>Studies on innovation and international trade have traditionally focused on manufacturing because neither was seen as important for services. Moreover, the few existing studies on services focus only on industrial countries, even though in many...</p>

This paper analyses the results of the financial services negotiations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) at the World Trade Organization (WTO). It shows that the negotiations have contributed to more stable and transparent policy regimes in many developing and transition...

This paper analyzes the provisions of the new Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), drawing insights from trade theory and recent developments in the economics of information and law. A central conclusion is that in a world where imperfectly informed procurers purchase from imperfectly...

The objective of this paper is to assess the adequacy of multilateral rules dealing with monopolies and state enterprises, particularly in the domain of services. This paper argues that since these rules depend largely on the other obligations undertaken by Members, a variety of exemptions and...

A major challenge for the multilateral trading system is to secure the benefits of trade liberalization without infringing on the freedom of governments to pursue legitimate domestic objectives. The difficulty lies in distinguishing between two types of situations. In one, a non-protectionist...

This paper is concerned with three problems in the interpretation of the national treatment obligation in GATS. First, the precise domain of Article XVII on national treatment has not been clearly delineated, particularly in relation to Article XVI dealing with market access. Secondly, there is...