Le commerce des services, un commerce en trompe-l'œil ?. Une analyse fondée sur le point de vue de Hill

The paper focuses on the issue of cross-border trade in services. It argues that its current understanding may be quite misleading. First, bearing in mind Hill?s [1999] services definition, the paper discusses the extent of services-producing activities. It stresses that ?services? exporting activities, producing ?knowledge capturing products?, should be recognised as genuine goods-producing activities. Second, the paper explains that the picture the Balance of Payments (bop) displays of trade in services, although improving, is still heterogeneous and blurring. On the one hand, several entries are still heterogeneous. On the second hand, contrary to a common view, the bop does not provide accurate information about trade of services industries. Moreover, a striking finding is that services industries are not the major actual traders of the services account. Classification JEL : F1, L8