A Comparative Study On The Regional Rules And Its Effects Of Trade In Services

Since twenty-first century, with the progress of technology and capital flowing around the world more freely, many of the previously considered non tradable service activities can participate in the international trade. Over the past thirty years, with the rapid growth of global trade in services, service trade volume increased from $367 billion in 1980 to 4 trillion and 860 billion dollars in 2014, an increase of 12.24 times.Conform to the trend of the times, more and more international trade negotiations put trade in services into the agenda.2000 years ago, the negotiations on trade in services were rare. Today, negotiations on the liberalization of trade in services has become the indispensable important component of world trade negotiations. According to the WTO database,175 RTAs covering services have been notified under GATS Article V at the end of March 2016, of which 137 RTAs were in force(Appendix I).Today, major developed economies such as United States, European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia and major developing economies such as China, Brazil, Mexico, India, are actively involved in the process of liberalization of trade in services. With the government’s active promotion of negotiations on trade in services, the impact of these agreements on service trade has become increasingly concerned.This paper chooses 2002-2012 as the research period and selects 20 economies (7 developing economies and 13 developed economies) as the sample economies. When deciding which economy should be selected for the sample, the following two important factors are considered:(1) the main importers and exporters of the world trade in services; (2) actively participating in the process of regional liberalization of trade in services.The main contents of this paper are as follows:Firstly, the relevant literature will be sort out, which part is the theoretical basis of this study. Secondly, a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the characteristics, evolution and trends of international and regional trade arrangement in services will be made. Meanwhile, the negotiation of TISA is included in the study. Thirdly, GATS-Plus, GATS-Neutral and GATS-Minus features are defined and calculated in this paper. Finally, this paper uses gravity model to make empirical analysis of the effect of GATS-Plus, GATS-Neutral and GATS-Minus characteristics in regional trade arrangements of trade in services.We can draw the following conclusions:Regional trading arrangements in services can indeed plays a role in promoting trade in services, but "only commodity" regional trade arrangements will decrease trade in services. GATS-Plus can promote the development of trade in services in a certain extent, but GATS-Minus’s inhibitory effect on trade in services is not obvious.