Purpose: The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of digital services trade on economic growth of a panel of developing, emerging and developed countries for the period 2005- 2019.  Methodology: Panel-Vector Auto-Regression (P-VAR) and Fixed Effects models (FE) were employed to evaluate the impact of digital services trade on a panel of 32 developing, 45 emerging and 24 developed countries respectively. Findings: The Vector Error Correction Models (VECM) indicated that digital services exports have a significant long run positive impact on GDP in all the country panels. Specifically, a 1% increase in digital service exports increased per capita GDP by 0.88%, 0.78% and 0.34% in developed, emerging and developing countries respectively. Moreover, there was a long run causality running from digital services export models to GDP in all the three country panels. The study found that for every 1% increase in the number of people using the internet, GDP increased by 0.62%, 0.75% and 0.02% in developed, emerging and developing country panels respectively. Fixed Effects (FE) models showed that digital services trade had a significant positive impact on GDP of 0.07% only in developed countries. In terms of adjustment to a long run equilibrium, results indicated that the speed of adjustment was fastest in emerging countries panel at 0.81% followed by developing countries panel at 0.75%, and it was slowest in developed countries panel at 0.29%.These preliminary results clearly indicated that the panel of developing countries were trailing behind in digital services trade. Recommendations: Given that developing countries panel was trailing behind in digital services trade relative to emerging and developed countries panels, it was recommended that developing countries governments and other stakeholders should increase investments in both institutional and physical digital infrastructure that would enable more people, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and those in rural areas to access and participate in digital trade related services. Access to stable, high speed and affordable internet services should be prioritized.  This study contributes to the evolving literature on digital services trade and economic growth.

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This study conducts a comparative analysis of selected emissions trading systems (ETS) by examining them in terms of cost efficiency and jurisdictional authority overlap. Findings show that, the selected allowances markets generally exhibit cost inefficiency as manifested by price volatility. It is also found that ETS environmental jurisdictional overlaps are largely caused by the overly centralized environmental policy regulation. Literature review indicates that practical approaches to mitigating price volatility and jurisdictional authority problems include, among others, linking of ETS jurisdictions as exemplified by the linked California-Quebec ETS, integration of allowances markets, switching from emission-based taxation to consumption-based taxation, and development of the derivatives markets. Streamlining and delegation of environmental laws and judicial reviews are some of the efforts that could help mitigate jurisdictional overlap disputes.

Objectives: To analyze the effect or impact of Digital Services Trade on economic growth (GDP) of a panel of Low, Middle and High Income Countries. Study Design: Panel Quantitative Study. Methodology: Dynamic Difference GMM (Diff-GMM) and System GMM (Sys-GMM), Panel pooled OLS (POLS) and Fixed Effects (FE) models were employed in the analyses. Results: The System GMM estimator seems to predict that, ceteris paribus, a 1 unit increase in digital services exports significantly impacts GDP growth in Low and High Income countries panels in the short run by 5.7% and 52.4% respectively. The panel POLS models estimate that digital services exports cause a significant long run increase in GDP in High income countries by 39.67% relative to 6.68% in the panel of Middle Income countries and negative growth in Low income countries of 7.74%. The FE models predict that for every 1 unit increase in the number of people using the internet, GDP significantly increases by 42.7%, 27.8% and 0.03% in the Middle, High, and Low Income countries panels respectively. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that generally, digital services trade seems to have a significant positive effect on GDP of all country panels. However, Low and Middle Income countries are lagging behind. Therefore, this study recommends that, to promote digital trade driven economic growth, the panel of Low and Middle Income countries’ policy makers should increase investments in both institutional and physical digital infrastructure that enable more people, Small and Medium enterprises(SMEs) and rural populations have access to stable, high speed and affordable digital services.