OECD and non-OECD countries Analysis by Digital Services Trade Restrictiveness Index

The paper analyzes various countries based on cluster analysis (k-means) to divide 86 countries into two clusters according to their belonging to OECD and non-OECD countries. Based on the multidimensional space of the Digital Services Trade Restrictiveness Index, Cluster No. 1, characterized by negative values for all variables, characterizes a group of countries with less stringent restrictions on trade in digital services, mainly from among the OECD countries. Cluster No. 2, on the contrary, has positive values for all variables, which indicates strict restrictions in this area and, to a greater extent, includes countries that are not members of the OECD. The clustering results are confirmed by the Mann-Whitney U-criterion, which indicates statistically significant differences between groups in several indicators, such as infrastructure connectivity, intellectual property rights, other barriers and payment systems, except the indicator of electronic transactions in the OECD group, where there are no statistically significant differences. The results also indicate a correlation between OECD membership and the characteristics of clusters identified in the study.