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112. Politics and Parallel Negotiations: Environment and Trade in the Western Hemisphere
- Author:
- John Audley and Edward Sherwin
- Publication Date:
- 04-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- IN DECEMBER 1994, at the behest of then–U.S. president Bill Clinton, the leaders of the 34 Western Hemisphere democracies convened in Miami for the first comprehensive hemispheric summit in more than 25 years. The assembled heads of state pledged that their countries would forge a path toward regional integration based on four overarching principles: Governments should build strong democratic institutions, prosperity should be promoted through free trade and economic cooperation, poverty and discrimination should be eliminated, and the natural environment should be preserved through policies promoting sustainable development. “Future generations,” Clinton said at the time, “will look back on the Miami summit as a moment when the course of history in the Americas changed for the better.”
- Topic:
- Environment and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, South America, Latin America, Central America, and North America
113. Economic Analysis in Environmental Reviews of Trade Agreements: Assessing the North American Experience
- Author:
- Frank Ackerman, Kevin Gallagher, and Luke Ney
- Publication Date:
- 04-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Beginning in the late 1990s, Canada and the United States began requiring "Environmental Reviews (ERs)" of all trade agreements to be negotiated by each government. This paper, commissioned by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, outlines how ERs have evolved in North America, and evaluates the different methodological approaches that have been employed in ERs thus far. We show that the ERs conducted to date have an encouraging number of strengths that can be built upon. However, we also establish that the art of conducting ERs is still in its infancy. We identify four limitations with the methodological approaches that have been employed in the most recent ERs. Based on an analysis of these limitations, we propose four ways to improve how ERs are conducted in the future.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- North America
114. Protecting the Environment While Opening Markets in the Americas
- Author:
- William Krist
- Publication Date:
- 01-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The North-South Center, University of Miami
- Abstract:
- Market Access Negotiations are a major element of the efforts to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by 2020. If successful, these negotiations will remove all tariff and nontariff barriers to trade among the 34 participating countries on all nonagricultural products, including forest and mining products, fish, and manufactured goods.
- Topic:
- Development, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, and North America
115. The European Union and North America
- Author:
- Edward A. Fogarty
- Publication Date:
- 10-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper assesses the past, present, and future of transatlantic commercial relations in terms of EU trade strategies. After surveying the medium-term trajectories of the relationships with the United States, Mexico, and Canada-both separately and as a group-it will consider several possible sources of European Union trade preferences vis-à-vis NAFTA, including interest groups' incentives to seek to capture national and European governing institutions, the balance between the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, European leaders' desire to balance against overweening American power, and possible attempts to construct either a common Western identity or, alternatively, a European identity in contradistinction what the United States seems to represent. The hope is that these different approaches provide a contrasting set of interpretations whose comparison side-by-side allows new insights into the dynamics governing EU-North American trade relations.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Canada, North America, and Mexico
116. Democratizing U.S. Trade Policy
- Author:
- Pat Choate and Bruce Stokes
- Publication Date:
- 11-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Storm clouds signaling trouble with American trade policy have been gathering for some time. In the early 1990s, Congress barely approved creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and only strenuous efforts by the Clinton administration and the business community ensured passage of legislation creating the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the late 1990s, President Clinton twice failed to obtain congressional renewal of his trade-negotiating authority. The massive demonstrations during the meeting of the world's trade ministers in Seattle in 1999 reflected a widespread public unease with the impact of trade policy on a range of issues, from clear-cutting practices in the forests of Indonesia to the price of AIDS drugs in southern Africa. Today, public opinion polls consistently demonstrate that, although the American public supports freer trade in theory, it often has profound reservations about trade liberalization in practice. And the current global economic slowdown may only further polarize public opinion on trade issues.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, Indonesia, South America, and North America
117. Border Effects within the NAFTA Countries
- Author:
- John H. Rogers and Hayden P. Smith
- Publication Date:
- 03-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Abstract:
- Using consumer price indexes from cities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, we estimate the "border effect" on U.S.-Mexican relative prices and find that it is nearly an order of magnitude larger than for U.S.-Canadian prices. However, during a very stable sub-period in Mexico (May 1988 to November 1994), the "width" of the U.S.-Mexican border falls dramatically and becomes approximately equal to the U.S.-Canadian border. We then show that when consideration is limited to cities lying geographically very close to the U.S.-Mexican border--San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Tijuana, Mexicali, Juarez, and Matamoros--the border width falls compared to that estimated with the full sample of U.S. and Mexican cities, but falls only very slightly. We also present evidence that the border effect in U.S.-Mexican prices is not primarily due to the border effect in U.S.-Mexican wages. Finally, using the prices of 276 highly dis-aggregated goods and services, we estimate the variability of relative prices of different items within Mexican cities. This measure of relative price variability declines during the stable peso sub-period, but by less than the decline in nominal and real (i.e., CPI-based) exchange rate variability. Our results are strong evidence of a "nominal border effect" in relative prices within NAFTA, but also indicate that real side influences are important.
- Topic:
- Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, Canada, North America, and Mexico
118. Community Control in a Global Economy: Lessons from Mexico's Economic Integration Process
- Author:
- Eliza Waters and Tim Wise
- Publication Date:
- 02-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
- Abstract:
- The North American Free Trade Agreement appeared to promise economic growth for Mexico and improved living conditions for its people. While the Mexican economy has recovered significantly from its post-NAFTA collapse, there is mounting evidence that many of the pre-NAFTA warnings of worsening poverty and deteriorating environmental conditions were true, if exaggerated. However one interprets the statistics, there is little doubt that the economic integration process, which began a full decade before NAFTA took effect, has created a significant restructuring of the Mexican economy, with some of the country's most vulnerable residents facing the harshest conditions.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- North America
119. Protest and Collaboration: Transnational Civil Society Networks and the Politics of Summitry and Free Trade in the Americas
- Author:
- Patricio Korzeniewicz and William C. Smith
- Publication Date:
- 09-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The North-South Center, University of Miami
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the politics of hemispheric integration exemplified by the Summits of the Americas held in Miami (1994), Santiago (1998), and Quebec (2001) and the negotiations over the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Our basic premise is that political and institutional arrangements articulating state, society, and economy in Latin America are currently in the midst of a process of reconfiguration unleashed by the acceleration of globalization and attendant crises of state-centered development strategies. More specifically, we believe the Americas are witnessing the emergence of an ensemble of new social and political actors, among the most salient of which are new social movements and civil society organizations (CSOs), organized in networks operating at the domestic, regional, and global levels.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, North America, and Miami
120. The Impact of MERCOSUR on the Automobile Industry
- Author:
- Jerry Haar and Thomas A. O'Keefe
- Publication Date:
- 09-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The North-South Center, University of Miami
- Abstract:
- A transformation of the automotive industry, particularly the segment involved in production of finished vehicles, has taken place in the Southern Common Market (Mercado Común del Sur/Mercado Comum do Sul—MERCOSUR/MER-COSUL) region of South America, at a time when MERCOSUR member states opened their economies to global competition and to participation in an ambitious subregional economic integration project. This Agenda Paper provides an overview of the factors that have contributed to this recent industry transformation. The paper also examines the factors involved in the formal incorporation of the automotive sector into the MERCOSUR project and discusses the impact this development is like-ly have on the subregional automobile industry,
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, South America, Latin America, and North America