Trade in services drives the exchange of ideas, know-how and technology. It helps firms cut costs, increase productivity, participate in global value chains and boost competitiveness. Consumers benefit from lower prices and greater choice. However, international trade in services is often impeded by trade and investment barriers and domestic regulations. Moreover, differences in regulation can constitute additional trade costs in their own right as services suppliers must comply with multiple sets of regulations.
The STRI heterogeneity indices are bilateral measures of regulatory heterogeneity. They are calculated on the basis of detailed information from the Services Trade Restrictiveness database and take values between zero and one. The score represents the weighted share of the total number of measures to which the country pair has different answers. The indices are available by country pair, sector and year.
This dataset aims to assemble and disseminate balance of payments data on trade in services at the most detailed partner-country and service-category level available. To the extent that countries report them, data are also broken down by type of service according to the EBOPS classification. These data concern international trade in services between residents and non-residents of countries and are reported within the framework of the sixth edition of the IMF's Balance of Payments Manual and the Extended Balance of Payments Services Classification (EBOPS2010), which is consistent with the balance of payments classification but is more detailed. Statistics by partner country and service category on international trade in services such as transportation, communication services, financial services, government services are recorded for Australia and Chile from 1999 onwards and shown in US dollars.