The Impact of Liberalizing Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in Services

The Impact of Liberalizing Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in Services
Author: Jesper Jensen
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 58
Release: 2004
Genre: Free trade
ISBN:

The authors estimate that Russia will gain about 7.2 percent of the value of Russian consumption in the medium run from WTO accession and up to 24 percent in the long run. They estimate that the largest gains to Russia will derive from liberalization of barriers against multinational service providers. Piecemeal and systematic sensitivity analysis shows that their results are robust."--Abstract.

The Impact of Liberalizing Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in Services

The Impact of Liberalizing Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in Services
Author: Jesper Jensen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 58
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

Jensen, Rutherford, and Tarr use a computable general equilibrium model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which encompasses improved market access, tariff reduction, and reduction of barriers against multinational service providers. They assume that foreign direct investment in business services is necessary for multinationals to compete well with Russian business service providers, but cross-border service provision is also present. The model incorporates productivity effects in both goods and services markets endogenously through a Dixit-Stiglitz framework. As a result, the estimated gains from WTO accession are much larger than would be obtained from a typical model with perfect competition. The ad valorem equivalent of barriers to foreign direct investment have been estimated based on detailed questionnaires completed by specialized research institutes in Russia. The authors estimate that Russia will gain about 7.2 percent of the value of Russian consumption in the medium run from WTO accession and up to 24 percent in the long run. They estimate that the largest gains to Russia will derive from liberalization of barriers against multinational service providers. Piecemeal and systematic sensitivity analysis shows that their results are robust.This paper - a product of the Trade Team, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to assess the impact of liberalization of barriers against foreign direct investment in services sectors.

The Impact of Liberalizing Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in Services

The Impact of Liberalizing Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in Services
Author: Jesper Jensen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

In this paper a computable general equilibrium model of the Russian economy is used to assess the impact of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which encompasses improved market access, Russian tariff reduction, and reduction of barriers against multinational service providers. It is assumed that foreign direct investment in business services is necessary for multinationals to compete well with Russian business services providers, but cross-border service provision is also present. The model incorporates productivity effects in both goods and services markets endogenously, through a Dixit-Stiglitz framework. It is estimated that Russia will gain about 7.2% of the value of Russian consumption in the medium term from WTO accession and up to 24% in the long run. It is also estimated that the largest gains to Russia will derive from liberalization of barriers against multinational service providers. Piecemeal and systematic sensitivity analysis shows that the results are robust.

Quantifying the Impact of Services Liberalization in a Developing Country

Quantifying the Impact of Services Liberalization in a Developing Country
Author: Denise Eby Konan
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 31
Release: 2004
Genre: Free trade
ISBN:

The authors consider how service liberalization differs from goods liberalization in terms of welfare, the level and composition of output, and factor prices within a developing economy, in this case Tunisia. Despite recent movements toward liberalization, Tunisian service sectors remain largely closed to foreign participation and are provided at high cost relative to many developing nations. The authors develop a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Tunisian economy with multiple products and services and three trading partners. They model goods liberalization as the unilateral removal of product tariffs. Restraints on services trade involve both restrictions on cross-border supply (mode 1 in the GATS) and on foreign ownership through foreign direct investment (mode 3 in the GATS). The former are modeled as tariff-equivalent price wedges while the latter are comprised of both monopoly-rent distortions (arising from imperfect competition among domestic producers) and inefficiency costs (arising from a failure of domestic service providers to adopt least-cost practices). They find that goods-trade liberalization yields a gain in aggregate welfare and reorients production toward sectors of benchmark comparative advantage. However, a reduction of services barriers in a way that permits greater competition through foreign direct investment generates larger welfare gains. Service liberalization also requires lower adjustment costs, measured in terms of sectoral movement of workers, than does goods-trade liberalization. And it tends to increase economic activity in all sectors and raise the real returns to both capital and labor. The overall welfare gains of comprehensive service liberalization amount to more than 5 percent of initial consumption. The bulk of these gains come from opening markets for finance, business services, and telecommunications. Because these are key inputs into all sectors of the economy, their liberalization cuts costs and drives larger efficiency gains overall. The results point to the potential importance of deregulating services provision for economic development.

Does Services Liberalization Benefit Manufacturing Firms?

Does Services Liberalization Benefit Manufacturing Firms?
Author: Jens Matthias Arnold
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 38
Release: 2007
Genre: Bank
ISBN:

While there is considerable empirical evidence on the impact of liberalizing trade in goods, the effects of services liberalization have not been empirically established. Using firm-level data from the Czech Republic for the period 1998-2003, this study examines the link between services sector reforms and the productivity of domestic firms in downstream manufacturing. Several aspects of services reform are considered and measured, namely, the increased presence of foreign providers, privatization, and enhanced competition. The manufacturing-services linkage is measured using information on the degree to which manufacturing firms in a particular industry rely on intermediate inputs from specific services sectors. The econometric results lead to two conclusions. First, the study finds that services policy matters for the productivity of manufacturing firms relying on services inputs. This finding is robust to several econometric specifications, including controlling for unobservable firm heterogeneity and for other aspects of openness. Second, it finds evidence that opening services sectors to foreign providers is a key channel through which services liberalization contributes to improved performance of downstream manufacturing sectors. This finding is robust to instrumenting for the extent of foreign presence in services industries. As most barriers to foreign investment today are not in goods but in services sectors, the findings may strengthen the argument for reform in this area.

The Impact on Russia of WTO Accession and the Doha Agenda

The Impact on Russia of WTO Accession and the Doha Agenda
Author: Thomas Fox Rutherford
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 35
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

Taking price changes from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model of world trade, the authors use a small open economy computable general equilibrium comparative static model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of global free trade and a successful completion of the Doha Agenda on the Russian economy, and especially on the poor. They compare those results with the impact of Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on income distribution and the poor. The model incorporates all 55,000 households from the Russian Household Budget Survey as "real" households. Crucially, given the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization as part of Russian WTO accession, the authors also include FDI and Dixit-Stiglitz endogenous productivity effects from liberalization of import barriers against goods and FDI in services. The authors estimate that Russian WTO accession in the medium run will result in gains averaged over all Russian households equal to 7.3 percent of Russian consumption (with a standard deviation of 2.2 percent of consumption), with virtually all households gaining. They find that global free trade would result in a weighted average gain to households in Russia of 0.2 percent of consumption, with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption, while a successful completion of the Doha Development Agenda would result in a weighted average gain to households of -0.3 percent of consumption (with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption). Russia, as a net food importer, loses from subsidy elimination, and the gains to Russia from tariff cuts in other countries are too small to offset these losses. The results strongly support the view that Russia's own liberalization is more important than improvements in market access as a result of reforms in tariffs or subsidies in the rest of the world. Foremost among the own reforms is liberalization of barriers against FDI in business services.

Liberalizing Financial Services and Foreign Direct Investment

Liberalizing Financial Services and Foreign Direct Investment
Author: L. Páez
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2015-12-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0230316824

This book focuses on the relationship between FDI and financial service liberalization in the context of the WTO. By conducting an economic assessment on the extent of GATS liberalization in commercial banking it seeks to empirically clarify if the multilateral liberalization efforts under the WTO promote FDI.

Liberalising Foreign Direct Investment Policies in the APEC Region

Liberalising Foreign Direct Investment Policies in the APEC Region
Author: Bernie Bishop
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2018-05-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351758608

This title was first published in 2001. This work is a response to criticisms that investment liberalization in the APEC region is not moving quickly enough. It commences with a historical overview of APEC's process for investment liberalization and a description of current foreign direct investment policies for each of the APEC economies. It then argues that there are significant constraints to further liberalization arising from economic development concerns in the developing countries and political considerations in both developed and developing countries in the region. It also suggests that a truly liberalized investment environment would involve the removal of investment incentives. Again, there are political and institutional reasons that make this difficult. With several suggestions for further research that should better inform policy makers, this is an informative insight into the complex issues involved in the liberalization process in the APEC region.

The Impact on Russia of WTO Accession and the Doha Agenda

The Impact on Russia of WTO Accession and the Doha Agenda
Author: Thomas F. Rutherford
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN:

Taking price changes from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model of world trade, the authors use a small open economy computable general equilibrium comparative static model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of global free trade and a successful completion of the Doha Agenda on the Russian economy, and especially on the poor. They compare those results with the impact of Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on income distribution and the poor. The model incorporates all 55,000 households from the Russian Household Budget Survey as real households. Crucially, given the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization as part of Russian WTO accession, the authors also include FDI and Dixit-Stiglitz endogenous productivity effects from liberalization of import barriers against goods and FDI in services. The authors estimate that Russian WTO accession in the medium run will result in gains averaged over all Russian households equal to 7.3 percent of Russian consumption (with a standard deviation of 2.2 percent of consumption), with virtually all households gaining. They find that global free trade would result in a weighted average gain to households in Russia of 0.2 percent of consumption, with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption, while a successful completion of the Doha Development Agenda would result in a weighted average gain to households of -0.3 percent of consumption (with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption). Russia, as a net food importer, loses from subsidy elimination, and the gains to Russia from tariff cuts in other countries are too small to offset these losses. The results strongly support the view that Russia's own liberalization is more important than improvements in market access as a result of reforms in tariffs or subsidies in the rest of the world. Foremost among the own reforms is liberalization of barriers against FDI in business services.