"Services are currently of great interest and importance to both policy-makers and businesses in Europe, and are a major factor in maintaining European growth and competitiveness over the coming decades. Previously, data relating to the interactions between trade flows, regulatory regimes and the European political economy has been inconsistent and fragmented. Now, thanks to the efforts of the EC, OECD and World Bank, more harmonised and accessible data is available. This provides an important opportunity for the introduction and development of doctoral dissertations. The goal of the proposed network Globalization, Investment, and Services Trade - GIST is to develop a cohort of researchers in Europe focused on international trade and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the service sectors, and to integrate this network with the policy community. The service sector has traditionally been treated as a sector whose outputs are purely non-tradable. As a result, the existing body of research on international trade and trade policy is focused almost entirely on agriculture and manufacturing and research on multinationals and foreign direct investment is also focused on manufacturing firms and industries. Yet, while economists, political scientists, geographers, and institutional scholars remain focused on the set of international regulatory systems governing merchandise trade, dramatic changes have moved services from non-tradable to the realm of tradability. The geographic anchor of services has been cast loose, as the telecommunications revolution has changed the nature of activities that can be traded. The proposed network will explore these developments in the work package Theory of cross-boarder trade and FDI which will explore the growing importance of services in all OECD countries, the limited tradability of many services, the deregulation of service markets and FDI liberalization policies. Real world changes in the ownership and structure of service-sector indus"