To disseminate statistics on trade in goods and services together, there is a need for well-coordinated institutional arrangements which are understood as a set of agreements between the involved agencies on the division of the responsibilities in the collection, processing, compilation and dissemination of data.

The service sector is large and growing. Additionally, international trade in services is growing rapidly. Yet there is a dearth of empirical research on the size, scope and potential impact of services trade. The underlying source of this gap is well-known—official statistics on the service sector in general, and trade in services in particular, lack the level of detail available for the manufacturing sector in many dimensions....(more)
Recent Trends in U.S. Services Trade, 2010 Annual Report focuses principally on infrastructure services (banking, electricity, insurance, retailing, securities, and telecommunications), which are consumed by every firm irrespective of economic sector. The largest infrastructure service firms are located in developed countries and offer their services globally through cross-border trade and affiliate transactions. Economic growth in developing countries around the world continues to create new opportunities for expansion and investment by infrastructure service firms...(more)
The media publish economic data on a daily basis. But who decides which statistics are useful and which are not? Why is housework not included in the national income, and why are financial data available in real time, while to know the number of people in employment analysts have to wait for weeks? Contrary to popular belief, both the availability and the nature of economic statistics are closely linked to developments in economic theory, the requirements of political decision-makers, and each country’s way of looking at itself.…(more)
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has been actively involved in research and programmatic activities on issues related to nontariff measures since the early 1980s. In 1994, it began to collect and classify non-tariff barriers (NTBs) according to a customized Coding System of Trade Control Measures…(more)
Natural resources represent a significant and growing share of world trade, and properly managed, can provide a variety of products that contribute greatly to the quality of human life. They also present particular challenges for policy makers. The extraction and use of natural resources must balance the competing needs of current and future generations. The manner in which they are managed has important environmental and sustainability implications…(more)
In 2009, EU271 external trade in services2 slowed down compared with 2007 and 2008. EU27 exports of services to the rest of the word fell by 10%, from 524 billion euro in 2008 to 473 bn in 2009, and EU27 imports by 8%, from 446 bn to 409 bn. As a result, EU27 trade in services recorded a reduced surplus of 63 bn in 2009, compared with surpluses of 78 bn in 2008 and 87 bn in 2007...(more)
This paper aims to define and develop methodologies, and to indicate use of indirect trade in steel. Indirect trade in steel – exports and imports of steel in the form of steel containing manufactured goods – is a crucial issue in steel demand estimations. Incorporating indirect trade in steel allows a more realistic picture of steel use across countries and in time....(more)
Balance of payments statistics serve as the common basis for analyzing cross-border trade in services, providing information about exports and imports by individual countries or by economic or monetary areas, specified by service categories and partner countries. However, balance of payments statistics do not deliver insight into the facts that determine trade flows as it is not countries who trade services but corporations...(more)
We present a new dataset of international trade costs in services sectors. Using a theory-based methodology combined with data on domestic shipments and cross-border trade, we find that trade costs in services are much higher than in goods sectors: a multiple of two to three times in many cases. Trade costs in services have remained relatively steady over the last ten years, whereas trade costs in goods have fallen overall at an impressive rate...(more)
Services are increasingly important in modern economies contributing about 68% of world economy value added in 2002 and, although at a much lower level, are increasingly traded internationally. These patterns of increasing importance of services are observed in the generality of both “developed” and “developing” economies, although there are economies which show exceptions to the trend…(more)
THE BUREAU of Economic Analysis (BEA) takes a broad perspective of U.S. international sales and purchases of services in this article by presenting information on (1) services that cross borders and are included in the international transactions accounts as exports and imports and (2) services supplied by multinationals’ affiliates through the channel of direct investment. This approach acknowledges the extent to which multinational companies (MNCs) provide services using affiliates located in—but owned outside of—the markets that they serve…(more)