Three Essays on International Trade in Services

Abstract

Global trade in services has risen tremendously in recent years. Yet, trade in manufacturing goods still accounts for the lion's share of worldwide trade. However, this picture masks the role of services value added embodied in manufacturing goods. While there is a bulk of empirical work on the firm-level determinants for goods trade, research on services trade has only started very recently due to newly available micro-level data. This thesis tries to shed light on how firms' individual activities shape aggregate services trade on the one hand, and - given the recent threat of protectionism among major industrialised countries - how impediments to firms' international engagement in services trade may reduce overall welfare on the other hand.