Policy restrictions and services performance: evidence from 32 countries

Abstract

The impact of services trade and investment policy which affects the performance of the service sector is the topic of this paper. The performance indicator is not the services share of total output but the services shares in the gross value of goods exports. We find that a more restrictive environment for services delivery is associated with a lower services share in exports, but with a diminishing effect. The results remain robust even after extra measures of the ease of doing business (such as number of documents to export, number of days to export and "rank of trading across borders") are included. There is a significant relationship between policy and the share of services from domestic origin, including those from foreign invested firms, in exports, but not with the share of services from offshore sources. This result indicates that at present the more important impact of services policy reforms is via the establishment of new providers, rather than via trade across borders. This causal channel has important consequences for the political economy of reforms in services.