Taxation, trade, consumer protection and competition are among the areas of economic policy that require new thinking in the digital age: they are the ‘guard rails’ of the digital economy. Increased cooperation could lead to effective national approaches and experience informing regional and global multilateral cooperation arrangements.
Taxation, trade, consumer protection and competition are among the areas of economic policy that require new thinking in the digital age: they are the ‘guard rails’ of the digital economy. Increased cooperation could lead to effective national approaches and experience informing regional and global multilateral cooperation arrangements.
Currently, however, there is a lack of regional and global standards in these areas, and multilateral cooperation is generally not working well. This may inflict far higher costs than is widely recognised. To take one relatively simple example, regional and global standards in areas such as interoperability of mobile money systems and best practices for digital ID would have considerable benefits. To discourage misuse, such standards and practices would also need to include clear accountability.
International trade rules need to be updated for the digital age. Technologies and trade have changed dramatically since 1998, for example, when the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last brokered an agreement on e-commerce.79 In January 2019, 76 WTO member states announced the initiation of plurilateral negotiations on trade-related aspects of e-commerce.80 Any agreement will need to address concerns of a diverse range of countries, including lower-income countries in which the e-commerce sector is less developed.81