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441. Time to Terminate the ESF and the IMF

Author:
Anna J. Schwartz
Publication Date:
08-1998
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund are undemocratic institutions unaccountable for their actions. Their current functions have little to do with their original missions. The ESF is used by the executive branch to circumvent Congress in the provision of foreign aid. Its foreign exchange interventions have, in any event, always been wasteful and ineffective at controlling the relative price of the U.S. dollar. The IMF has also been used to provide massive bailouts in the cases of Mexico in 1995 and of Asian countries since 1997. Defenders of the IMF as an international lender of last resort are misinformed since the IMF does not and cannot serve that purpose. Both institutions should be abolished, not reformed, because they are not needed to resolve currency crises and they preclude superior solutions.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, Asia, and Mexico

442. As Mexico Imploded: Action and Inaction in the United States

Author:
Sidney Weintraub
Publication Date:
07-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
On December 20, 1994, Mexican financial and monetary authorities raised the band within which the peso was permitted to fluctuate by 15 percent. They expected a short-lived shock, some economic adjustment, and then back to business as usual with a modestly devalued peso. Mexico, after all, had a history of currency devaluations, particularly during the transitions from one administration to another. Beyond that, Mexico was not a world monetary powerhouse and what it did would not normally attract great or sustained international attention.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Mexico

443. Coping with US - Mexican Interdependence: The NAFTA Response

Author:
Miquel Ángel Valverde
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This paper examines the theoretical discussion on interdependence, and its use for analyzing US-Mexican economic relations. It combines interdependence's premises with other perspectives on the position of North American economies in the global marketplace, arguing that NAFTA is an institutional response to these developments.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, North America, and Mexico

444. The Politics of NAFTA: Presidential use of Side Payments

Author:
Miquel Ángel Valverde
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
In June 1990, President George Bush and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari announced their intention to begin negotiating a free trade agreement. Canada joined the negotiations the following August. The proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provoked an intense lobbying campaign in the US Congress, in what became a major political battle for its congressional approval. Some economic interests would win, others would lose with NAFTA. Congress members were worried about the loss of American low-skilled jobs and environmental issues. Regional interests were voiced loudly in the House of Representatives. A loose coalition of interest groups, including the AFL-CIO, public interest groups, and environmental organizations, coordinated opposition to the agreement. On the pro-NAFTA side was an ad hoc group of corporations, labeled USA-NAFTA, which included the National Association of Manufacturers and the US Chamber of Commerce. The Mexican government mounted an extensive lobbying campaign in favor of the trade pact. After intense congressional lobbying, President Bush obtained fast-track negotiating authority for NAFTA. Negotiations concluded in August 1992, and the following December, Presidents Bush and Salinas, as well as Canada's Prime Minister Mulroney, signed the pact, Presidential candidate Bill Clinton, under intense pressure from key constituencies of the Democratic Party, supported NAFTA "in principle," but only if complementary agreements on labor and environmental issues were included. Once in the office, Clinton negotiated these "side agreements" with Mexico and Canada, but still, strong opposition to NAFTA continued. In order to win congressional votes needed for the pact's approval, President Clinton engaged in a series of political compromises or "side-payments" with legislators, being able to form a congressional bipartisan coalition that allowed NAFTA passage.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, North America, and Mexico

445. Cato Institute's 15th Annual Monetary Conference

Author:
Anna J. Schwartz, Stanley Fischer, Jerry L. Jordan, Leland B. Yeager, Francisco Gil-Diaz, Roberto Salinas-Leon, A. James Meigs, Lawrence Kudlow, William A. Niskanen, Michael Prowse, and Bert Ely
Publication Date:
10-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
On Tuesday, October 15, 1997 the Cato Institute continued its 15 year tradition of exploring pressing and timely issues in international fiscal policy with its meeting Money and Capital Flows in a Global Economy. Speakers including Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan; First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Stanley Fisher; and the Bank of Mexico's Vice Governor, Francisco Gil-Díaz, convened to sort through the pressing issues relevant to global capital flows that face the world economy.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, North America, Mexico, and Nagasaki

446. Participatión Ciudadana y Retos Ambientalistas Frente a los Riesgos de la Globalización y del TLCAN

Author:
Sofía Gallardo C.
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
With the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement different view regarding the possible environmental risks and the measures that had to be taken in order to be able to manage them were expressed. Some environmental organizations for the first time sought to influence international trading issues in local, national and trinational networks. Current globalization processes have established new challenges to the citizens because they have forced them to focus their political action simultaneously in national, regional and global public scenarios. Therefore, Mexican, Canadian and American citizens have been increasingly involved in their countries' economic integration processes, creating awareness of the possible risks generated by the current globalization patterns and of the ways in which they can be affected. This paper concentrates on the challenges that civic organizations in general, and environmental groups in particular, have had to confront in order to maintain or try to improve their living standards with the implementation of NAFTA and offers some considerations on the successes and failures of civic and environmental actions in the purview of NAFTA.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
America, Canada, North America, and Mexico

447. Mexico: The Artist Is A Woman

Author:
Lucreita Giese, Carmen Boullosa, Marjorie Agosín, Sandra Berler, Elena Gascón-Vera, Laura Riesco, and Margo Glantz
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
The present volume includes essays presented March 4, 1994 at the symposium “Mexico: The Artist Is a Woman” at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The event commemorated the work of Latin American women in film, photography, and literature. The contributions of these artists in their respective fields reveal the originality and diversity of contemporary Mexican art. Each of the participants has an outstanding artistic career.
Political Geography:
Latin America and Mexico

448. National Laws, NAFTA Panels and Multilateral Provisions: Sovereignty or Supranational Rules at Bay

Author:
Imtiaz Hussain
Publication Date:
03-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
Extending a previous investigation of farm dispute settlement under the Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1989 to include the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, this study inquires if regionalism in this part of the world threatens the sovereignty of national trade laws and multilateral provisions. The adjudication process, spelled out by Chapter 19 of the two free trade agreements, is singled out and disaggregated into four stages for analysis. This, in turn, allows for (a) a reassessment of the sovereignty-supranational theoretical debate; and (b) undertaking a comparative study of the national trade relief laws in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Whereas extant works, almost exclusively of disputes under G.A.T.T., find that supranational rules influence outcomes more than the pursuit of sovereign interests by states, the preliminary findings of this study suggest that both forces are equally strong in North America. By and large, they suggest that reciprocal relations between states, regional entities, and multilateral organizations are necessary for the viable operation of each; yet this necessity may, in the long-term, constrain the multilateral organization more than the regional. This interpenetrating relationship is unique, and the source of institutional innovations of relevance to the pursuit of both state sovereignty and supranationalism.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, South America, North America, and Mexico

449. Elections in Mexico: Third Report

Publication Date:
08-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The national elections on August 21, 1994 will be an important milestone in Mexico's political opening. During the last four years, the Mexican Congress approved a number of important reforms to the electoral process. Yet the Mexican population remains highly skeptical about the integrity of the elections. Opinion polls show that nearly one-half of respondents expect fraud, and more than one half expect post-electoral violence.
Topic:
Democratization and Government
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico