Trade in International Transport Services: The Role of Competition

The paper is concerned with trade in transport services (not cabotage but rather international shipping, transport, and related logistical services) and the importance of competition and market structure in the sector. It examines implications of liberalization for profits, trade, and national gains from trade. Though past GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) maritime negotiations involved the maritime nations, this paper also flags interests of consuming nations (particularly poorer developing countries). Issues raised in the analytical section are illustrated through a computational example, to provide a rough sense of orders of magnitude and the importance of the issues raised for basic gains from improved market access.