The service economy tends to become a key factor in world trade development and world economic organization. Services make up the largest economic sector in many countries, and dominate foreign direct investment. In the knowledge-based economy, services are critical to the competitiveness of firms in all sectors. The importance of services is increasingly reflected in the policy agenda – ranging from liberalization to promotional efforts to regulation at national and international levels.

The overall objective of this course is to impart to the students the basic ideas on the subject of services, analyze the pattern of trade in services by means of the tools provided by trade theories, to understand the mutual benefits and risks of international service trade and how to analyze and solve the possible issues that may appear, and so on.

This course will help those students who will work later in private sectors or government to deal with the related issues in the service area; further, the theoretical system, research method and instruments of analysis of this course are conducive for students’ further work, whether theoretical, practical or policy-oriented.

Topics include the significance of services for economic development, theories of international service trade, foreign direct investment and protection of services, some important sub-sectors of services such as financial services, information services, ect, service offshoring, GATS, and a number of fundamental questions about domestic service sectors, international services trade and its measurement, etc.

Credits: 2