The Gats Agreement on Financial Services: A Modest Start to Multilateral Liberalization

57 Pages Posted: 15 Feb 2006

See all articles by Piritta Sorsa

Piritta Sorsa

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Date Written: May 1997

Abstract

This paper analyzes the links between multilateral, and unilateral financial liberalization, the former represented by the General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS). It provides an overview of the main features of the GATS and what the participants in banking and securities within its framework, and compares GATS liberalization with the actual state of liberalization of the participants` financial sectors. The results suggest that in many countries multilaterally liberalized financial sector policies are more restrictive than the actual state of openness or development of financial sectors. Many emerging markets liberalized little under the GATS despite often well-developed financial markets, while the opposite was true in some less developed developing countries.

JEL Classification: F13, G15, G28

Suggested Citation

Sorsa, Piritta, The Gats Agreement on Financial Services: A Modest Start to Multilateral Liberalization (May 1997). IMF Working Paper No. 97/55, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=882317

Piritta Sorsa (Contact Author)

International Monetary Fund (IMF) ( email )

700 19th Street NW
Washington, DC 20431
United States

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