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This paper studies the trade effects of COVID‐19 using monthly disaggregated trade data for 28 countries and multiple trading partners from the beginning of the pandemic to June 2020. Regression results based on a sector‐level gravity model show that the negative trade effects induced by COVID‐19 shocks varied widely across sectors. Sectors more amenable to remote work contracted less throughout the pandemic. Importantly, participation in global value chains increased traders’ vulnerability to shocks suffered by trading partners, but it also reduced their vulnerability to domestic shocks.

This paper investigates the impact of global value chain participation on productivity, using data on trade in value added from the World Input-Output Database. The results based on a panel estimation covering 13 sectors in 40 countries over 15 years suggest that participation in global value chains is a significant driver of labor productivity. Backward participation in global value chains, that is, the use of imported inputs to produce for exports, emerges as particularly important. An increase by 10 percent in the level of global value chain participation increased average productivity by close to 1.7 percent.

Can regionalism do what multilateralism has so far failed to do—promote greater openness of services markets? Although previous research has pointed to the wider and deeper legal commitments under regional agreements as proof that it can, no previous study has assessed the impact of such agreements on applied policies. This paper focuses on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where regional integration of services markets has been linked to thriving regional supply chains. Drawing on surveys conducted in 2008 and 2012 of applied policies in the key services sectors of ASEAN countries, the paper assesses the impact of the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) and the ambitious ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint, which envisaged integrated services markets by 2015. The analysis finds that over this period, ASEAN did not integrate faster internally than vis-a-vis the rest of the world: policies applied to trade with other ASEAN countries were virtually the same as those applied to trade with rest of the world. Moreover, the recent commitments scheduled under AFAS did not produce significant liberalization and, in a few instances, services trade policy actually became more restrictive. The two exceptions are in areas that are not on the multilateral negotiating agenda: steps have been taken toward creating regional open skies in air transport, and a few mutual recognition agreements have been negotiated in professional services. These findings suggest that regional negotiations add the most value when they are focused on areas that are not being addressed multilaterally.

Poor connectivity is conventionally blamed on difficult geography and low income. But economic isolation could also result from policy choices in key ‘linking’ services such as air transportation and telecommunications. A new database on applied services trade policies reveals that many countries restrict trade in the very services that connect them with the rest of the world. We present evidence that restrictive policies lead to more concentrated market structures and limited access to services, even after taking into account the influence of geography and income. Moving from an intermediate level of restrictiveness to an open regime could lead to a 20 percentage point increase in cellular teledensity in the telecommunications sector and to a 25 per cent increase in flight connections per airline in the aviation sector, respectively.

Studies on innovation and international trade have traditionally focused on manufacturing because neither was seen as important for services. Moreover, the few existing studies on services focus only on industrial countries, even though in many developing countries services are already the largest sector in the economy and an important determinant of overall productivity growth. Using a recent firm-level innovation survey for Chile to compare the manufacturing and ‘tradable’ services sector, this paper reveals some novel patterns. First, even though services firms have on average a much lower propensity to export than manufacturing firms, services exports are less dominated by large firms and tend to be more skill intensive than manufacturing exports. Second, services firms appear to be as innovative as – and in some cases more innovative than – manufacturing firms, in terms of both inputs and outputs of ‘technological’ innovative activity, even though services innovations more often take a ‘non-technological’ form. Third, services exporters (like manufacturing exporters) tend to be significantly more innovative than non-exporters, with a wider gap for innovations close to the global technological frontier. These findings suggest that the growing faith in services as a source of both trade and innovative dynamism may not be misplaced.

This paper assesses the quantitative importance of electronic commerce in trade and tariff revenue, in light of the WTO decision on ‘duty-free cyberspace’. Electronic commerce is likely to boost international trade in software, digitizable media products (music, books) and many services sectors significantly. However, despite the growing importance of electronic commerce for trade, tariff revenue loss from duty-free electronic commerce is unlikely to be significant.

Developing countries need to ensure that multilateral rules and commitments on trade in services contribute to economically rational policy-making. This paper shows that their reluctant participation in past negotiations, and assumption of defensive positions, have not been conducive to the achievement of this goal. The next round of services negotiations requires a change in negotiating strategies. Rather than resist the liberalisation of domestic markets and seek a dilution of multilateral rules, they need to push aggressively for (i) liberalisation of domestic services markets, emphasising competition more than a change of ownership, (ii) development of improved rules for domestic regulations that encourage economic efficiency in remedying market failures and pursuing social goals, and (iii) effective liberalisation of foreign services markets by the elimination of both explicit restrictions and implicit regulatory barriers. At the same time, developed countries need to rise to the challenge of eliminating the barriers they maintain to exports from developing countries, so that we may witness not a bitter round of grudging concessions, but a virtuous cycle of mutually beneficial liberalisation. * This paper is a condensed version of Mattoo (1999), which has a more comprehensive discussion of developing country interests and references to the literature. Thanks go to Carsten Fink, Randeep Rathindran, and Arvind Subramanian for contributions to this paper, to Bernard Hoekman, Marcelo Olarreaga, Arvind Panagariya for insightful comments, and to Malina Savova for valuable research assistance. The views expressed are personal and should not be attributed to the World Bank.