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651. 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

652. Foreign Direct Investment in the United States: Establishment Data for 1992

Publication Date:
05-1997
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
U.S. Economic Statistics Briefing Room
Abstract:
The data in this volume cover the operations of establishments of U.S. affiliates of foreign companies in 1992. A U.S. affiliate is a U.S. business enterprise that is owned 10 percent or more, directly or indirectly, by a foreign person. The volume is divided into two parts. The first covers all industries and presents data on the number, employment, payroll, and shipments or sales of the establishments of U.S. affiliates (hereinafter referred to as “foreign-owned establishments”); it includes data by detailed industry for nonmanufacturing and totals for manufacturing as a whole. The second part presents these data items by detailed industry within manufacturing as well as additional items for manufacturing establishments, including value added, total compensation of employees, employee benefits, hourly wage rates of production workers, and expenditures for new plant and equipment. In addition to data by industry, both parts present data by State and by country of owner. 2 The data for this volume were obtained from the Census Bureau's 1992 Economic Censuses and Standard Statistical Establishment List (SSEL). 3 They are the result of a project that links Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) enterprise, or company, data on foreign direct investment in the United States with Bureau of the Census establishment data for all U.S. businesses. 4 The project was authorized by the Foreign Direct Investment and International Financial Data Improvements Act of 1990. This volume updates data for foreign-owned manufacturing and nonmanufacturing establishments published in Foreign Direct Investment in the United States: Establishment Data for 1987 and data for foreign-owned manufacturing establishments for 1988–91 published in Foreign Direct Investment in the United States: Establishment Data for Manufacturing, in separate volumes for each year (see “Data Availability”). To aid comparisons of the data in this publication with those in the publications for earlier years, tables A and B provide cross-references between the table numbers used in this publication and those used in the publications for 1987–91. Analyses of the data from the link are available in three SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS articles: “Foreign Direct Investment in the United States: Establishment Data for 1987,” in the October 1992 issue of the SURVEY, gives an overview of the 1987 data and an analysis of the attributes of industries with substantial foreign direct investment activity; “Characteristics of Foreign-Owned U.S. Manufacturing Establishments,” (http://raven/ARTICLES/INTERNAT/FDINVEST/1994/0194iid.pdf) in the January 1994 SURVEY, presents a profile of foreign-owned manufacturing establishments using the 1990 data; and “Differences in Foreign-Owned U.S. Manufacturing Establishments by Country of Owner,” (http://raven/ARTICLES/INTERNAT/FDINVEST/1996/0396iid.pdf) in the March 1996 SURVEY, uses the 1991 data to examine whether industry-mix and operating characteristics of foreign-owned U.S. manufacturing establishments vary by country of owner. In addition, an article that will analyze the 1992 data from a regional perspective is planned. The establishment data from the link project complement BEA's enterprise data for U.S. affiliates. BEA's enterprise data are needed for analyzing the overall significance of, and trends in, direct investment and for compiling the U.S. international transactions accounts, the international investment position of the United States, and the U.S. national income and product accounts. The data on positions and transactions between U.S. affiliates and their foreign parents used in compiling the national and international accounts exist only at the enterprise level. Analyses of some topics, such as profits and taxes, are meaningful only at that level. Furthermore, balance sheets and income statements containing the critical, nonduplicative financial and operating data needed for examining these topics exist only at the enterprise level. The establishment data facilitate analyses of the activities and importance of foreign-owned U.S. companies in specific, detailed industries. Each establishment of an enterprise can be classified separately in the establishment data, while BEA's enterprise data classify the entire enterprise, however diversified, in one industry. Furthermore, the level of industry classification can be much more detailed for individual establishments than is appropriate for consolidated enterprises, whose operations may span many narrowly defined industries. As a result, foreign-owned establishments can be classified into over 800 industries, while BEA's foreign-owned enterprises can be classified into only 135 industries. The tables in each part of this volume are organized into three groups. The first group gives an overview of the data by industry, country, and State. The second group presents detailed industry tables for individual States. The third group presents detailed industry tables for selected major investor countries. Some of the tables in each part show totals for key items of all U.S. establishments and the share of the all-U.S. totals accounted for by foreign-owned establishments.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

653. U.S. Multinational Companies: Operations in 1995

Author:
Raymond J. Jr. Mataloni
Publication Date:
10-1997
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
U.S. Economic Statistics Briefing Room
Abstract:
The operations of nonbank U.S. multinational companies (MNC's)grew more rapidly in 1995 than they had grown, on average, since 1982—the year in which this annual series began. According to preliminary estimates from BEA's annual survey of U.S. direct investment abroad for 1995, worldwide gross product of U.S. MNC's (U.S. parents and majority-owned foreign affiliates combined) grew 6 percent, compared with an average annual increase of 4 percent in 1982–94; employment increased 1 percent, compared with negligible growth; and capital expenditures increased 8 percent, compared with a 2-percent increase (table 1).
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

654. The International Investment Position of the United States in 1996

Author:
Russel B. Scholl
Publication Date:
07-1997
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
U.S. Economic Statistics Briefing Room
Abstract:
The net international investment position of the United States at yearend 1996 was -$870.5 billion with direct investment valued at the current cost of tangible assets, and it was -$831.3 billion with direct investment valued at the current stock-market value of owners' equity (table A, chart 1). For both measures, the value of foreign assets in the United States continued to exceed the value of U.S. assets abroad. However, for the direct investment component of the position valued on either basis, U.S. assets abroad continue to exceed foreign assets in the United States.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

655. 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

656. 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

657. 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

658. 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

659. 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

660. 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