The paper investigates the factors that have influenced WTO members to take on their chosen level of liberalization commitments in the framework of liberalization of trade in financial services and the impact of such commitments on financial sector stability. The most important factors are economic growth, current account, trends in banking sector development, policy restrictiveness, and peer group effects. The econometric evidence suggests that more liberal commitments may be associated with greater vulnerability to currency and banking crises - most likely a short-term effect, which should be mitigated with time through increased market efficiency and better resource allocation.

The paper investigates the factors that have influenced WTO members to take on their chosen level of liberalization commitments in the framework of liberalization of trade in financial services and the impact of such commitments on financial sector stability. The most important factors are economic growth, current account, trends in banking sector development, policy restrictiveness, and peer group effects. The econometric evidence suggests that more liberal commitments may be associated with greater vulnerability to currency and banking crises-most likely a short-term effect, which should be mitigated with time through increased market efficiency and better resource allocation.

With the establishment of the WTO, trade in services became part of the world trade order. Volume 6 is dedicated to these rather recent developments. It covers the core agreement, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) with annexes, as well as the additional instruments , which have been adopted later on to govern the liberalization in specific sectors. Those are the Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services, the Second Protocol on Financial Services, the Third Protocol on the Movement of Natural Persons, the Fourth Protocol on Basic Telecommunications and the Fifth Protocol, which contains further rules for financial services. This volume will be a valuable reference tool for the WTO community as a whole, as well as for professionals and researchers, who deal with one of the sectors concerned, e.g. financial services and telecommunications. Furthermore, it is highly relevant in view of those sectors, which are the subject of ongoing liberalization efforts or earmarked for future negotiations, namely accounting, legal services, transport, tourism, environmental services, legal and educational services.

It is difficult to design and implement an effective safety net for banks, because overgenerous protection of banks may introduce a risk-enhancing moral hazard and destabilize the very system it is meant to protect. The safety net that policymakers design must provide the right mix of market and regulatyory discipline, enough to protect depositors without unduly undermining market discipline on banks.

This publication explores some of the issues surrounding the financial services negotiations, analyzes what is at stake, and assesses what WTO members have already achieved in previous negotiations. This study contains detailed tables, charts, and boxes to help the reader understand some of the characteristics of the financial services sector and appreciate the full benefits of its trade liberalization.--Publisher's description.

This study provides a unique framework for analyzing the role of the GATS and the WTO in the liberalization and regulation of the financial services sector.