Search

Begin New Search Topic International Trade and Finance Political Geography United States Content Type Working Paper

411. Assessing the Rules - Power Debate in Farm Trade: A Case Study of the Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement

Author:
Imtiaz Hussain
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
Asking "How have trade disputes over agriculture been settled in North America?", this study examines 11 appeals made to binational panels established under Chapter 19 of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1989. By disaggregating the process of dispute settlement into complaints, rulings, country responses, and overall settlement, it reassesses an old debate (whether dispute outcomes are influenced by collective rules or the pursuit of self-help) and sheds new light. Whereas extant studies make the argument, through a study of appeals to G.A.T.T., that collective rules temper the blind pursuit of self-help, this study makes the argument that self-help is equally important an explanation. Whereas the former focus on outcomes which are non-binding, this study focuses on outcomes which are binding. Implications are drawn, at a time when domestic interests, nationalistic sentiments, and supranational pursuits compete to influence policy outcomes at all levels, for agriculture, integration in North America, and dispute settlement at the multilateral level.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, and North America

412. 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

413. Trading Places: The Caribbean Faces Europe and the Americas in the Twenty-first Century

Author:
Anthony T. Bryan
Publication Date:
06-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
The challenges confronting the Caribbean with respect to trade with Europe and the Americas are essentially similar: the future of existing regimes of significant preferences, the need to plan for the long term without such preferences, and the development of a strategy to meet the transition. Unfortunately, the dialogue on these matters often has been characterized as a protocol for the Caribbean to “choose between friends.” Growth in the economies of the Caribbean will depend to a large extent on participation in or access to global trade arrangements. Ideally, a Caribbean strategy for participation should involve simultaneous access to as many pacts as possible. This paper is an overview of the legacy and the future of trade relations between the Caribbean and Europe, and between the Caribbean and the Americas, as these relationships constitute the Caribbean's most urgent global agenda.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, America, Europe, and Caribbean

414. Time to Reinvent APEC

Author:
Edward Lincoln and Kenneth Flamm
Publication Date:
11-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, provides an opportunity for 18 countries with strong trade and investment ties to discuss a wide range of economic issues. APEC has scored two tangible achievements to date: a sweeping but vaguely worded 1994 pledge by its member states to open up to free trade and investment by 2010 and 2020, and a central role in the negotiation of the 1996 Information Technology Agreement (ITA). However, APEC is in danger of fading. When this year's summit begins on November 19, the United States must push for major reform of the APEC bargaining process if the organization is to have any chance of realizing its ambitious trade reform targets.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Asia

415. Globaphobia: The Wrong Debate Over Trade Policy

Author:
Robert Z. Lawrence and Robert E. Litan
Publication Date:
10-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The outcome of the fast-track debate that opened this month will determine whether the United States continues to lead the world toward a more open global economy or whether, for the first time since the end of World War II, it sends the opposite message.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Globalization, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

416. The Politics of Free Trade in the Western Hemisphere

Author:
Manuel Pastor and Carol Wise
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Just as the 1980s now stand out as the decade of the debt crisis in Latin America, the 1990s have become the free trade decade. After a number of failed attempts at trade liberalization during the 1970s, many states in the region now have made dramatic progress in their efforts to reduce tariffs and eliminate quantitative restrictions (QRs) (see Table 1). The strongest evidence of this new openness is reflected in Mexico's 1994 entry into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada, the stated intention at the 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami to develop a plan for the full expansion of hemispheric free trade, and the ongoing consolidation of such subregional trade pacts as South America's Southern Cone Common Market (MER - COSUR), including Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Topic:
Development, Government, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, Brazil, South America, Uruguay, Caribbean, North America, and Paraguay

417. The Syndrome of the Ever-Higher Yen, 1971-95: American Mercantile Pressure on Japanese Monetary Policy

Author:
Ronald McKinnon, Kazuko Shirono, and Kenichi Ohno
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
From 1971 through mid-1995, the yen continually appreciated against the U.S. dollar because the Japanese and American governments were caught in a mutual policy trap. Repeated threats of a trade war by the United States caused the yen to ratchet up in 1971-73, 1977-78, 1985-87, and 1993 to mid-1995. While temporarily ameliorating commercial tensions, these great appreciations imposed relative deflation on Japan without correcting the trade imbalance between the two countries. Although resisting sharp yen appreciations in the short run, the Bank of Japan validated this syndrome of the ever-higher yen by following a monetary policy that was deflationary relative to that established by the U.S. Federal Reserve System. The appreciating yen was a forcing variable in determining the Japanese price level. After 1985, this resulted in great macroeconomic instability in Japan--including two endaka fukyos (high-yen-induced recessions).
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Israel, and East Asia

418. The China-United States Bilateral Trade Balance: How Big Is It Really?

Author:
K.C. Fung and Lawrence Lau
Publication Date:
04-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
There are huge discrepancies between the official Chinese and U.S. estimates of the bilateral trade balance. The discrepancies are caused by different treatments accorded to re-exports through Hong Kong, re-export markups, and trade in services. Deficit-shifting between China, on the one hand, and Hong Kong and Taiwan, on the other, due to direct investment in China from Taiwan and Hong Kong, is partly responsible for the growth in the China United States bilateral trade deficit.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, China, Taiwan, Asia, and Hong Kong

419. 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