BUSINESS SERVICES, TRADE, AND COSTS (OECD Trade Policy Working Paper No. 46). By Molly Lesher & Hildegunn Nordås. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 13 December 2006. This technical paper analyses the role of business services in 32 select OECD and non-OECD economies. It reinforces the view that business services are important drivers in the global economy. The analysis suggests that access to a wider variety of business services increases productivity in manufacturing. In small OECD and developing countries, the gains from trade in business services follow mainly from access to broader and more specialised business service suppliers than their domestic bases can sustain. In larger OECD countries, gains from trade in business services follow from the lower costs of imported services and, to a lesser extent, from an increase in variety. Business services are catching up with manufacturing in terms of terms of their contribution to GDP, showing that business services are an increasingly dynamic sector in many OECD countries. The authors conclude that all countries benefit from lowering trade barriers to business services through lower costs and greater variety. To access the paper, visit http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/9/37885564.pdf.
GLOBAL SUBSIDIES INITIATIVE (GSI) DATABASES. The Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI), a project of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, has launched a series of on-line searchable databases on literature that relates to subsidies to agriculture, energy, fisheries and services. The databases allow users to search for research on subsidies by country, commodity, and types of economic support. A searchable database for WTO subsidy notifications has also been launched recently. This database provides a link to the WTO’s new and full notifications, indicating the date of publication, the period in which those subsidies are reported, and sectors to which subsidies were granted. A database for literature on transport subsidies will be available in early February 2007. All of these databases are available from the research section of the GSI’s website: http://www.globalsubsidies.org/research-platform.