Access Barriers to Services Markets: Mapping, Tracing, Understanding and Measuring

CEPS Special Reports No. 77, June 2013

84 Pages Posted: 10 Jun 2013

See all articles by Federica Mustilli

Federica Mustilli

Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)

Jacques Pelkmans

Centre for European Policy Studies

Date Written: June 7, 2013

Abstract

EU and national policy-makers argue that the single services market is a key to EU growth, but that many barriers to services market access remain. Grasping the scope, nature and economic meaning of these barriers, however, has proven rather difficult. This is exactly what the present CEPS Special Report helps the reader to do. We trace all market access barriers in services, as far as the data allow, and attempt to understand their nature and economic meaning (given that they are usually forms of domestic regulation) and discuss aspects of the measurement of restrictiveness. We make a sharp distinction between market access barriers restrictions in a non-EU WTO/GATS environment and intra-EU ones, and demonstrate the significant difference in ambition between the two. The paper specifies in detail the progress made by the EU's horizontal reform in services markets, documenting the removal of many cross-border obstacles to trade in services and establishment. Finally, following these conceptual and descriptive analyses, a brief assessment of access restrictiveness indices is provided for both the non-EU WTO environment and for intra-EU services access barriers.

Keywords: single services market, EU, services, services markets, EU services access barriers

Suggested Citation

Mustilli, Federica and Pelkmans, Jacques, Access Barriers to Services Markets: Mapping, Tracing, Understanding and Measuring (June 7, 2013). CEPS Special Reports No. 77, June 2013, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2276819

Federica Mustilli (Contact Author)

Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) ( email )

1 Place du Congres 1000
Brussels, 1000
Belgium

Jacques Pelkmans

Centre for European Policy Studies ( email )

1 Place du Congres
B-1000 Brussels, 1000
Belgium

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
82
Abstract Views
539
Rank
543,153
PlumX Metrics