Sino-U.S. Trade In Services: Current Situation,Competitiveness,and Factor Analysis

From the 1990 s,trade in services has become the primary focal point of international trade.In recent years,although Sino-U.S.trade in services has achieved serious development,as a result of the influence of quite a few factors,the scale of the two countries' bilateral trade in services is not particularly substantial.One might notice that the total value of trade in services between China and the United States falls behind that in commodities and that China's trade in services has always been in deficit.Therefore,it is of great significance for the development of China's international trade in services to study the current situation of Sino-U.S.trade in services,its competitiveness,and factors influencing the two countries' services trade competitivenessIn order to achieve the research goal,this thesis is divided into two logical parts.The first part(Chapters II-IV)starts with presenting a general overview of China's and U.S.economies and the role the service sector plays in the two nations.After that,a quantitative analysis of China's and U.S.trade in services based on comparative indicators is carried out in order to measure the overall competitiveness of the two countries on the international services market.Among the indicators calculated are the services trade competitiveness index,services exports international market share,revealed comparative advantage index,export and import structure of services industries,degree of dependence on trade,and degree of contribution of services industries to economic growth.The results of the quantitative analysis based on the statistical data on the development of China's and U.S.trade in services show that,although the current situation of trade in services in the United States is more favorable than that in China,for both countries,the development of the service sector has played a significant role in stimulating their economic growth.The service sector in the two countries is still highly dominated by traditional commercial services industries,travel services industry,and transportation services industry.Unfortunately,the development of emerging services industries(e.g.the financial services industry,insurance services industry,information services industry,computer services industry,etc.)is still insufficient.The second part(Chapter V)explores factors influencing Sino-U.S.trade in services and introduces an extended gravity model in order to conduct an empirical analysis.Among the relevant factors considered in the model are bilateral trade in services,ratio of levels of income per capita,openness of services industries,proportion of the services industries output value in GDP,exchange rate,bilateral trade in goods,bilateral FDI,and GDP.For better accuracy and relevance,the time series is selected from 1999 to 2017.The research results establish that SinoU.S.trade in services is still very unbalanced and requires much improvement.Based on the research findings,suggestions on how to promote Sino-U.S.trade in services have been put forward.Among them are adjustment of the service sector structure and promotion of emerging services industries development,openness enhancement and introduction of benign competition,improvement of policies and regulations to attract more investment,reinforcement of investment in human capital and promotion of service quality,and increase in attention and support from the government.