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1、SERVICES: THE CASE OF POSTAL VERSUS EXPRESS DELIVERY SERVICESMichael G. Plummer1 Introduction In developed countries, services continue to constitute by far the largest share of national economies. For example, in the EU and the United States, approximately seventy and eighty percent, respectively,
2、of the economy falls under the general rubric of services. Services have also increased in importance in trade: in the year 2000, the share of services in total exports came to approximately 28 percent in the United States and 22 percent in the EU, with an average for the entire OECD coming to about
3、 19 percent. The same trend is observable in developing countries. During the development process, it is typical that: (1) agriculture falls as a percentage of GDP; (2) manufacturing first rises and then falls as the economy matures; but (3) services continue to grow throughout thedevelopment proces
4、s. As a percentage of trade, services exports of developing countries have risen from nine percent in 1980 (approximately half the share of developed countries) to about eighteen percent in 2000, on a par with that of the developed countries.Given the complicated and diverse nature of trade in servi
5、ces, liberalization at the global level can be more delicate and in many ways more difficult than trade in goods. Services can be high tech or low tech; inputs and/or final products; privately-provided or publicly-provided; and closely related to other areas, such as foreign direct investment(“FDI”)
6、. Many services areas, however, still include government involvement, and state prerogatives in certain areas are recognizedby the GATS. Moreover, trade in goods tends to be separate from FDI, though clearly there exist indirect links between trade and FDI. In the area of services, however, trade in
7、 services can be intricately linked to FDI; in some sectors, trade in services is impossible without FDI.In this chapter, we will focus on the need for services liberalization in the global economy, with a focus on developing countries. Moreover, we will use the process and complications associated
8、with the liberalization of express delivery services as a case study. This area is particularly interesting because: (a) it is an industry that has becomehighly international; (b) it has become an important input to a variety of emerging industries and a key ingredient in the competitiveness of firm
9、s and countries; (c) liberalization runs up against various competition policy issues, especially since it potentially affects private and public services5; and (d) it is exactly the type of industry where greater international access created through global agreements can produce major benefits to d
10、eveloped and developing countries alike.2 Services Liberalization and the Stakes for Economic DevelopmentA series of multilateral negotiations under the auspices of the GATT/WTO have been very successful in bringing down barriers to trade in manufactured goods. Developing country tariffs are, in gen
11、eral, much higher than in the developed world, but a large majority of developing countries has liberalized substantially trade in manufactures over the past fifteen years. In fact, most of the benefits that would accrue to global free trade would go to developing countries, according to various com
12、putational general equilibrium models that have been used to estimate such effects.The developing world is a different story. Agriculture continues to play an important role in the economy in general and in trade in particular in the least-developed countries and in many middle-income countries. In
13、order to be successful, the Doha Round will have to include at least some agricultural liberalization if the developing countries are going to agree to any accord. Still, as the development process unfolds, manufactures and, especially, services will become increasingly important. As noted above, se
14、rvices have been growing rapidly in importance and already constitute eighteen percent of developing-country exports.An association between rapid real economic growth and rapid growth in services trade does not mean that the latter caused the former. Such estimation is much more complicated; indeed,
15、 there exists a chicken-and-egg simultaneity problem here. However, regardless of which causes which, the development of the services sector is clearly an important part of the development process.The case for economic reform and liberalization is just too strong. Countries that have sustained econo
16、mic liberalization have prospered; the ones that have not prospered generally do not have outward-oriented policies to blame but rather other economic-contextual problems. It is hard to promote growthlet alone long-term developmentin an atmosphere of hyper-inflation or civil war. China has used economic reform to transform the worlds most populous country from a least-developed, autarkic economy into an outward-oriented economic powerhouse; Vietnams reform
