quantitative limits, universal service obligations, prices, subsidies, government procurement matters and many others. In other words, these are measures that are pertinent for auditors, bankers, airlines and retailers alike, wishing to supply their services in any foreign jurisdiction. Even though the measures listed above are relevant for every subsector, responses to questions on these measures as well as the legal basis for those responses will be sector-specific. That is, we will get different answers to a question on a foreign equity limit for firms operating in commercial banking, retail distribution and rail transport services sectors. By legal basis we understand host economy's domestic laws and regulations laying down the statutory foundation for the specific measure - say, applicable quotas or price setting conditions - in every sector. Finally, the questionnaires include <u>sector-specific questions, aimed at capturing specific aspects of sectoral regulation. These questions</u> address measures such as limits on the expansion of the ATM network for foreign banks, dialing parity requirements from dominant suppliers of fixed-line telecommunications, whether foreign retailers are authorized to set up their own recycling systems. Each subsector questionnaire consists of a different number of sector-specific questions.

Each question has its own answer type. Most questions call for a binary-type of answer, i.e. "yes" or "no", whereas a few others require a numerical answer (for instance, a question on the duration of stay initially allowed for intra-corporate transferees), or a textual answer. Every binary response could be further complemented with _comments_ (i.e. relevant additional information on the issue raised by the question) and information on the relevant _legal source_ , including, whenever available, relevant weblinks.

As the focus of the questionnaire is on the treatment granted to _foreign_ services and service suppliers, wherever relevant survey questions address the existence of discriminatory and/or preferential treatment. Put differently, for some questions a respondent will be prompted to indicate whether the treatment of foreign suppliers differs from that of domestic services and service suppliers; and whether any preference has been granted to services and service suppliers originating in specific jurisdictions by virtue of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) or any other preferential arrangement. As much as possible, we tried to identify and capture 'actual' preferential treatment, i.e. treatment incorporated in specific regulations/guidelines as the result of (or linked to) specific FTAs.

Detailed guidelines were developed to ensure the coherence of the data collected. These guidelines enabled us to ensure consistency and reliability of information. The questionnaires were deployed online. As every law firm was given their specific token number, they could complete the questionnaires at their convenience during a six to seven weeks' time period. After having received the completed questionnaires, we reviewed them and sent our feedback back to the law firms.<sup>11</sup> Law firms made necessary adjustments or clarifications to the responses in light of our comments. These revised replies were further reviewed and, if needed, a second round of feedback was sent to the law firm.

# _Comparing policy information over time_

Throughout the process we paid particular attention to introducing a time dimension into our analysis. This was only possible for subsectors, modes and key restrictions for which information is available in both periods (2008-11 and 2016, respectively). The 2016 key restrictions and the resulting 2016 STRI were the starting point of the analysis. That required some adjustments to the 2008-2011 information. Thus, where there was a change in the score between 2008-11 and 2016, we checked the available documentation and adjusted the data as appropriate. In cases where we had not been able to identify the relevant measure for 2008-11, and with a view to ensuring that we included only documented changes in restrictiveness between the two periods, we neutralized that measure by imputing the 2016 value into the 2008-11 data set. We recognize that this approach may lead to an underestimation of the extent of change in policies.

# **Relationship to other databases**

The Services Trade Policy Database (STPD) builds on a number of prior initiatives by international and regional agencies. The first precedent is the GATS services database of WTO Members’ specific commitments and list of exemptions, which was established in the late 1990s.<sup>12</sup> This database is

> 11 Our team went through 672 questionnaires (23 subsectors questionnaires* 28 economies + 28

> general questionnaires).

> 12 See GATS module in ITIP Services, http://i-tip.wto.org/services/default.aspx.

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