Research On The Cooperation Issue Of Regional Liberalization Of Trade In Services In Asia

With the rapid development in the signature of regional and multilateral free trade agreements between countries, regional liberalization of services trade has become a new trading direction with a view to achieve a progressively higher level of liberalization in trade in services. However, it is still in its primary stage to develop services trade in the region. Because of the high similarity of export structure in the regional countries, when the members in the regional organization try to exchange services among each other, it will be full of competition and thus cause important problems. In addition, different services trade structures and characteristics of division of labor will influence the welfare effect of regional services trade.Therefore, from two aspects of transation cost and division economy, this dissertation made a research on the cooperation issues of regional liberalization of services trade in Asia by establishing a cooperative game model and a welfare effect model.This dissertation is consistent of seven chapters. The first chapter is the introduction part, in which the research background, problem, literature are introduced and quoted. It traced back to the relevant research on regional services trade agreements, the realization approaches and welfare effect of regional liberalization of services trade at home and abroad, and pointed out the shortages in the present study and in the end put forward this dissertation's research outline. The second chapter is the theoretical analysis of cooperation mechanism and welfare effect of regional liberalization of services trade. It defined the concept and meaning of regional liberalization of services trade, extended the theoretical model of cooperation mechanism and welfare effect of regional liberalization in trade in services from the aspect of transaction cost and specialized division of labor, and also analyzed the static and dynamic effect of services trade liberalization. The third chapter evaluated the present liberalization level in the regional services trade. It collected relevant free trade agreements and documents, especially among Asian countries, and evaluated the realization level of regional services trade liberalization, based on which it judged the stages and future developing trend of regional liberalization of services trade. In addition, it compared the Asian countries'services trade liberalization with North America's mature services trade, and tried to find out the similarities. The fourth chapter established a cooperative game model to analyze the cooperation mechanism of regional liberalization in trade in services based on the theory of transaction cost. It divided the transaction cost of liberalization into cost before liberalization and cost after liberalization, and the cooperation process of regional services trade into domestic negotiation and international negotiation, and individually analyzed the influence of liberalization cost on the cooperation of regional services trade with the method of cooperation game model and bargaining game model. The fifth chapter constructed a welfare effect model of regional liberalization in trade in services, which is mainly focused on the analysis of the influence of trade structure and specialized division of labor on the distribution of welfare of services trade liberalization. It introduced the concept of services product differentiation, analyzed the liberalization level of services trade under closed and open economy, and also the different influence effect under four services trade providing mode, and explored the approach to strengthen the complementarities of regional members in services trade structure, capture the benefit of division economy and finally promote the dynamic welfare effect of services trade liberalization on the basis of the deduction of liberalization transaction cost. The sixth chapter made an empirical analysis on China's regional liberalization of services trade by evaluating its realization level and economic effect, further validating the previous conclusions that the complementary trade structure can promote the formation and development of regional liberalization of services trade, based on which relevant policy suggestions and countermeasures were put forward in the end in order to help developing countries to participate in the process of regional liberalization of services trade and also accelerate the process of regional cooperation in services trade. The seventh chapter is the conclusion part, in which the shortcoming of the dissertation and future research expectation are introduced.This dissertation have the following conclusions:(1) It established a cooperation game model of regional liberalization of services trade based on the aspect of transaction cost, and analyzed the cooperation mechanism and developing approach when realizing regional services trade liberalization. By analyzing the domestic and international negotiation process of the participators, it pointed out that in order to realized the profit maximum in the region cooperation, the participators should deduct the liberalization transaction cost, balance the profit of the government and domestic monopoly group, and achieve a promissory liberalization agreement before the fully implementation of services trade liberalization, thus leading to the success of regional cooperation on services trade.(2) It brought forward an evaluation model of regional liberalization level of services trade based on the data of Asian countries. It was found out that Asian countries are uneven in the level of regional liberalization of services trade, where some countries show strong desire to develop regional liberalization in the region and open domestic market to the member countries. Meanwhile, it was also found out that construction services and education services commit the highest liberalization level to the regional countries, and the mode of commercial presence has the higher liberalization level than that of cross-border supply, and the negative approach commit the higher level of liberalization that the positive approach.(3) It developed a welfare effect mode of regional liberalization of services trade from the aspect of the influence of services trade structure and specialized division of labor. It analyzed the influence of different trade structure and characteristics of division of labor on the welfare distribution of regional services trade liberalization, calculate the complementary and competitiveness of different countries in Asia, and further testify the complementary of services trade structure and division of labor will positively influence the export of services trade in the region no matter in a short term or a long term through the granger causality test with panel data.(4) It put forward an evaluation method to evaluate the realization level of regional liberalization of services trade by taking the example of Asian countries'regional services trade agreement. And it also evaluated China's opening level under multilateral and regional cooperation, estimate the welfare effect of China's regional liberalization in trade in services with the modified gravity model. The sectoral data were also used to approve the influence of signature of regional services trade agreements on the development of services trade exports.