The Economy-wide Effects of Further Trade Reforms in Tunisia’s Services Sectors
The purpose of this paper is to benchmark Tunisia against other emerging economies in terms of the regulatory barriers affecting particular services sectors, and to assess the economy-wide effects of further liberalizing these services trade restri...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20100621084841 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3826 |
| Summary: | The purpose of this paper is to
benchmark Tunisia against other emerging economies in terms
of the regulatory barriers affecting particular services
sectors, and to assess the economy-wide effects of further
liberalizing these services trade restrictions, compared
with reducing the dispersion in barriers to its merchandise
trade. On the basis of a rather restricted sample of
services sectors, partial regulatory reform would yield
gains roughly equivalent to full unilateral reform of
manufacturing tariffs, but roughly one-tenth the gains from
full bilateral reform of border protection in agriculture
with the European Union. The adjustment costs associated
with these services trade reforms would be minimal. The
paper identifies the reasons why the gains from these
services reforms are relatively small, and argues that a
wider set of reforms could provide win-win outcomes and even
fewer adjustment costs. By contrast, the gains in
agriculture and manufacturing tend to come at the expense of
domestic output in the reforming sectors -- the gains are
greater, but so too are the adjustment costs. |
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