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Learn more about financial services and the WTO

Articles

(7/9/10) The WTO Conflict with Financial Transaction Taxes and Capital Management Techniques

Fact Sheets

Letters

Memoranda

Publications

(9/23/09) No Meaningful Safeguards for Prudential Measures in WTO Financial Service Deregulation Agreements

Reports

Financial Services

and the WTO

Around the world, there are calls for expansive new global financial services regulations to address the current global economic crisis. But there is a seeming total lack of awareness that most of the world's countries are bound to expansive World Trade Organization (WTO) financial services deregulation requirements. These terms locked in domestically, and exported internationally, the model of extreme financial service deregulation that most analysts consider a prime cause of the current crisis. Deregulation (not only liberalization) of the financial service sector - including banking, insurance, asset management, pension funds, securities, and more - is among the most important, but least discussed, aspects of the WTO.

Featured Resources:

Read our updated analysis of Senate Finance Committee Trade Subcommittee Chair Ron Wyden's questions to USTR about the conflicts between financial reregulation and WTO rules. Click here to read this critical memo. You can also read the analysis for our international audience here.
Memo: The WTO Conflict with Financial Transaction Taxes and Capitol Management Techniques, and How to Fix It (PDF)
Report: To Promote Economic Stability, Nations Must Free Themselves from WTO Financial Deregulation Dictates (PDF)
Fact Sheet: Trade and Financial Re-regulation (PDF)
Policy Primer: The WTO and the Global Economic Crisis (PDF)

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