
World Trade Organization | 799
Services Trade in the Future
Predicting how services trade is likely to evolve in the future is not an easy task.
Various factors aect how trade patterns may change. Technology, factors of
production and consumer preferences are key drivers of trade. In addition, both
firms and individuals may leverage comparative advantage of the host country if
they are trading services through a commercial presence abroad (GATS mode 3) or
through the temporary movement abroad (GATS mode 4).
Trade costs are key to determining whether an economy trades and how much it
trades.
This report uses a novel approach to estimate trade costs ...