This paper discusses the General Agreement on Trade in Services or GATS and assesses some of the key issues and concerns that have been voiced about this agreement, particularly with regard to its implications for policymaking in important social service sectors. The paper provides an overview of the GATS in terms of its key features, structural characteristics, and negotiating modalities. It a...

optimal level of regulation and regulatory reform seem to be an undisputed objective . however, in the context of financial regulation there are differences and disagreements over the optimal level of disclosure of information and capital adequacy standards. in this paper, instead of offering a substantive solution , we argue for a competitive process through which the optimal level of disclosu...

The health care sector is among the most rapidly growing sectors in the world economy. It is estimated to generate US$ 3 trillion per year in countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development alone and is expected to rise to US$ 4 trillion by 2005 (1, 2). The globalization of health services is reflected in the growing cross-border delivery of health services, through move...

The purpose of this article is to explain how globalization has evolved, in order to provide a context for assessing the health care restructuring that is occurring worldwide. The authors begin by defining globalization and introducing a framework for considering pathways that can affect social organization and health. They then draw attention to current trends, such as the GATS (General Agreem...

For several years now, a number of international bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the OECD and Eurostat have turned their attention to the increasing internationalization of companies through the establishment of foreign affiliates, including in the service sector. In December 1993, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) gave a strong impetus to the liberalization of inte...

Based on the first comprehensive mapping of telecommunications provisions in regional trade agreements (RTAs), this paper shows that RTAs have evolved and expanded significantly over years. While some focus information communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure, policy investment, other address services as well standards conformity assessment procedures ICT equipment. The most detailed ar...

February 15, 1997, will be remembered as a landmark date in the history of the multilateral trade system. On that day, sixty-nine governments formalized commitments to liberalize their basic telecommunications services under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The resulting Decision on Commitments in Basic Telecommunications has both symbolic and practical meaning. The final act ...

Foreign policy, especially trade policy, can have dramatic but rarely considered effects on public health. International human rights covenants oblige governments to scrutinise their foreign policy, including trade policy, for its impact on the progressive realisation of the right to health. Health is both a means and an end of development policy, but government investments in health are inadeq...

This paper investigates hypotheses about the determinants of trade and investment liberalization with a particular focus on the market access commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). We identify a positive impact of country size on the absolute coverage ratio, i.e. the ratio of the sum of weighted commitments to the number of possible commitments. Contrary to our the...