Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The common image of international trade is that of goods-sacks of grain, rolls of steel, pallets of machinery-traveling across borders by boat, rail, or truck. Though this image does represent the dominant form of trade, it nevertheless leaves out another significant, and growing, form of trade: international trade in services. Traditionally, services have generally been considered to be inherently non-tradable-or at least difficult to trade. There were acknowledged to be exceptions, such as tourism or the transportation and other services that attached to the trade in goods. Still, trade in services seemed almost to be an oxymoron. This is no longer the case. With the expansion of services as a proportion of national output for many economies, and especially for developed economies, there has also come an expansion of international trade in services and an expanded recognition of and interest in that trade. Among the indications of that expanded interest and concern are the establishment within the World Trade Organization (WTO) of a General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) that roughly parallels the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), with active negotiations among the 144 WTO members and a Council Trade in Services to administer it; an annual report by the US International Trade Commission (USITC), Recent Trends in US Services Trade ; and a growing pile of statistics, ... log in or subscribe to read full text