The fifth meeting of the Informal Working Group examined how services can act as shock absorbers or bottlenecks, and what linked firm-level and administrative data can reveal about resilience. It highlighted that exposure does not necessarily imply vulnerability: outcomes also depend on factors such as supplier concentration, substitutability and customization.
The sixth meeting will take this discussion from the firm level to the economy-wide level. Input-output (IO) and multi-regional input-output (MRIO) data can show how services are used directly and indirectly in production, where foreign services inputs enter production networks, and how much exposure is hidden upstream rather than visible in direct trade statistics.
The meeting will focus on what such data can reveal about services exposure and the scope for substitution, where their limits lie, and which related indicators are also useful for describing a country’s services trade and servicification.
The meeting will address the following guiding questions:
- Which IO/MRIO indicators are most informative for identifying direct and indirect exposure to foreign services inputs?
- How far can existing data distinguish exposure from dependence or vulnerability?
- How comparable are these measures across international databases?
- Which indicators are useful for country-level analysis of services trade and servicification?
What is UNCTAD’s Informal Working Group on Data for Services, Trade and Development Policies?
The Informal Working Group on Data for Services, Trade and Development Policies was established following the recommendations of the ninth session of the Multi-Year Expert Meeting (MYEM) on Trade, Services and Development. The Working Group seeks to identify services-trade data gaps, share good practice examples of data collection, identify relevant data sources and showcase innovative ways to use existing data for policymaking.
The first four meetings of the Working Group focused on data needs and good practices in services-trade data collection and use, including the potential of alternative and administrative data sources. The fifth meeting will build on this work by focusing on a specific policy question: how can services-trade, firm-level and administrative data help policymakers assess the role of services in supply-chain shocks and resilience, including by identifying services that act as shock absorbers, bottlenecks or sources of dependency.
Mandates
The meeting responds to the Geneva Consensus in particular paragraph 80.15 which calls on UNCTAD “to improve the collection, accessibility and use of trade in services data to inform policy decisions, to enable all, particularly women and microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, to leverage and benefit from trade in services and support the development of services-led trade export strategies.”
The meeting also follows up on the twelfth session of the MYEM, held on 15 and 16 April 2026, which encouraged UNCTAD to strengthen its work on services data and analyse the effects of external shocks on supply-chain resilience through a servicification lens.
Richard Baldwin is Professor of International Economics. He is an expert in global economic policy and theory, specializing in international trade, and is recognized as an authority on the economic drivers and risks of globalization. His research interests include the impact of digital technology on the global economy, the future of work, globalization, regionalism, and European integration.
Baldwin’s work combines perspectives from economics and political economy, providing a comprehensive view that connects historical context, current events, and future trends. Following an initial interest in economic development, his focus switched to trade when he met Paul Krugman in 1982, under whose guidance he worked on his PhD and with whom he would go on to write several articles.
Baldwin advises governments and international organizations around the world on globalization and trade policy issues. During the administration of President George HW Bush, he was Senior Staff Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, following trade matters such as the Uruguay Round and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations as well as numerous US-Japan trade conflicts.
Before joining IMD in 2023, he founded the economic policy portal VoxEU.org to promote research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading economists and has since served as its editor-in-chief. He was a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Trade from 2009 to 2015 and was twice elected to the Council of the European Economic Association. He also served as President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) from 2014 to 2018.
Baldwin started his academic career as a professor at the Columbia School of Business in New York and has been a visiting professor at many universities, including MIT, Oxford, and EPFL. He was a long-time professor of international economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.
Christopher Findlay is Honorary Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Adelaide. He is an economist specializing in international trade, services trade, economic integration and structural reform, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. His research examines the role of services, connectivity and trade policy in economic development and participation in regional and global value chains.
Mr. Findlay has held several senior academic and leadership positions, including Executive Dean of the Faculty of the Professions at the University of Adelaide from 2011 to 2018, Head of its School of Economics from 2005 to 2011, and Professor of Economics at the Australian National University from 1999 to 2005. From 2019 to 2025, he served as a part-time Commissioner of the South Australian Productivity Commission.
His research and policy work includes studies of barriers to services trade and investment, the contribution of services to productivity and economic transformation, and regional economic cooperation. He has contributed to projects of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and provided advisory services to the APEC and ASEAN secretariats. He is Vice-Chair of the Australian Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation. Findlay is a member of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2007 for his contributions to international relations, economic cooperation, trade and education. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Australian National University.
Mattia Cai is a Trade Analyst in the OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate. His work focuses on global input-output databases and Trade in Value Added (TiVA) indicators, including new measures that account for modes of supply in services trade. Before joining the OECD, he worked at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. He holds a PhD from the University of Padova.
Nomundari Baatar is a consultant with the Economic Research and Development Impact Department's Data Division of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). She supports the Bank’s analytical work using ADB’s multiregional input–output (MRIO) tables on global value chains, trade in value-added, structural transformation, and their environmental impacts across developing Asia. She holds a Master's in Public Administration in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and Economics from New York University. Her experience spans the design and implementation of data platforms, systems, and analysis across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors in the United States, Mongolia, and Viet Nam.
