Did trade patterns in services change into activities that were more digital-intense after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008, and was this shift structural? This paper uses a Difference-in-Difference (DID) approach to investigate whether services trade became more digital-based after the GFC in 2008. It finds support that the GFC formed a break from the previous period that caused services trade to become more digital – although there are signs that this had already started before 2008. Countries with high internet usage and a comparative advantage in digital-intense services, such as R&D, information exchange, computer services, and charges for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), on average saw post-GFC a 6% increase in global exports compared to other non-digital sectors. More striking is that upper-middle income countries and countries with medium levels of skills also witnessed a sharp increase. These significant outcomes may indicate the direction into which patterns of services trade are likely to turn after the current economic crisis resulting from COVID-19.

在 2008 年全球金融危机 (GFC) 之后，服务贸易模式是否转变为数字化程度更高的活动，这种转变是结构性的吗？本文使用差异中的差异 (DID) 方法来调查 2008 年全球金融危机后服务贸易是否变得更加数字化。它发现全球金融危机形成了与上一时期导致服务贸易变得更加数字化的突破的支持。 – 尽管有迹象表明这在 2008 年之前就已经开始了。平均而言，互联网使用率高且在研发、信息交换、计算机服务和知识产权 (IPR) 收费等数字密集型服务方面具有比较优势的国家与其他非数字行业相比，全球金融危机后的全球出口增长了 6%。更引人注目的是，中高收入国家和中等技能水平国家也出现了大幅增长。这些重大成果可能表明在当前由 COVID-19 引起的经济危机之后，服务贸易模式可能转向的方向。