Trade in services : How does it work ?

While services represent nearly 70 % of value added in all OECD countries, only a fifth of trade in goods and services is due to cross-border supply of services. Then internationalisation of services occurs by commercial presence of firms in host countries, its impact on white collar employment is limited and only unskilled workers incur falls in wage. As for temporary movement of people, Mode 4 is very difficult to measure either by trade or migration statistics. In the paper we show that the divergence between the preponderance of services in national activities and its weakness in international transactions is due to the importance of non tradeable industries, for which the degree is week and contrasts with activities implied in international competition.Trade in services ; Comparative Advantage ; Temporary movement of persons