New publication: Research Handbook on Trade in Services

The Research Handbook on Trade in Services is co-edited by Martin Roy, a Counsellor in the Trade in Services and Investment Division of the World Trade Organization.

Three years in the making, the Research Handbook explores the latest frontiers in services trade by drawing on insights from empirical economics, law and global political economy.Leading experts take stock of the learning done to date in services trade, explore policy questions bedeviling analysts and direct attention to a host of issues, old and new, confronting those interested in the service economy and its rising salience in cross-border exchange.

Across 22 chapters, the book sheds light on a subject matter that continues to be shaped by rapid evolutions in technology, data gathering, market structures, consumer preferences, approaches to regulation and ongoing shifts in the frontier between the market and the state. Expert contributors explore the subject through a multidisciplinary lens, offering a comprehensive overview of lessons learned over two decades of GATS jurisprudence.

The book further chronicles the rising stakes and involvement of developing countries in global services trade, notably their growing insertion in global value chains, as well as the latest advances and remaining challenges in the statistical measurement of trade in services.

“This Research Handbook on Trade in Services is the most comprehensive study to date on one of the most relevant, albeit least explored, areas in the field of international trade policy. By adopting a multi-disciplinary approach that brings together the economic, legal and political economy perspectives of renowned experts, Pierre Sauvé and Martin Roy have made a significant contribution to better understanding trade in services,” writes Anabel Gonzalez, the Head of the World Bank Group’s Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness in a review of the publication.

For more information, please see the publisher’s website