International trade in services: issues and concepts

This paper analyses how tradable services have been treated, both in statistical work and in the academic economic literature. It is obvious that improvements still need to be made to the harmonisation of statistical definitions, as well on the data collection itself. However, the literature has not established any objections, either formal or empirical, to taking long-standing theories of trade in goods and applying them to trade in services, provided the particularities of services, as well as the shortcomings of the data, are taken into account