Abstract
This study reports on the cross-country heterogeneity in youth awareness and expectations about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and nuclear power technology (NPT) within the North American free trade area (NAFTA). Models are estimated with data on youth respondents from the USA, Canada and Mexico, using seemingly unrelated bivariate weighted ordered probit regression, with maximum simulated likelihood estimation. Our findings show that the diffusion of technology and information within the trade bloc, for the 20 years prior to the 2015 data collection period, did not significantly contribute to cross-country convergence in youth awareness and expectations about GMOs and NPTs. Indeed, with regard to awareness, compared to youth from the USA, those from Canada show 15% (GMOs) and 7.1% (NPT) more awareness, respectively; while youth from Mexico show 34.4% and 19.5% less awareness about GMOs and NPT, respectively. With respect to expectations about future developments of the two technological artifacts, compared to youth from the USA, those from Canada and Mexico are 34.4% and 39.9% more optimistic about GMOs, respectively, while 15% and 49.7% are more optimistic about NPT. Overall, our findings show that the youth population within NAFTA is 2.5% and 6.7% more optimistic about GMOs and NPT for each level of increase in their awareness about the two technologies, respectively. Theoretically, our results seem to reject the hypothesis of NAFTA being a technology convergence country club in the Schumpeterian view, while seemingly supporting the existence of heterogeneous growth regimes within NAFTA.
Highlights
Free Trade Areas (FTAs) characterized by trade liberalization with national trade policy autonomy are processes through which nations enter into agreements to share a common trade zone, allowing all trading partners to benefit from a larger market with lower trade barriers [1]
The standardized measure of youth enjoyment of science suggests that the average adolescent in the North American free trade bloc is 0.44 standard deviations above the mean value of youths’ science enjoyment across all respondents in the 2015 Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) [111]
With regard to youths’ information diet, which may help shape their awareness and expectations about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and nuclear power technology (NPT) within North American free trade area (NAFTA), it can be noted that the average adolescent reports to regularly visit ecological websites (3.41), follow news blogs (3.27), read books on broad science (3.37), visit websites on broad science (3.06), read science articles in magazines and newspapers, and attend science clubs (3.70)
Summary
Free Trade Areas (FTAs) characterized by trade liberalization with national trade policy autonomy are processes through which nations enter into agreements to share a common trade zone, allowing all trading partners to benefit from a larger market with lower trade barriers [1]. By allowing member countries to trade with less friction, FTAs theoretically contribute over time to bloc convergences in economic, social and environmental factors [2,3]. As the global population grows, the need to increase productivity in the energy and food sectors is being felt by governments, policy-makers, and populations worldwide [34,35]. Innovation in the energy sector is concerned with the set of processes leading to new or improved energy technologies that can augment energy resources, enhance the quality of energy services, and reduce the economic, environmental, or political costs associated with energy supply and use [36]. In the following subsections, after providing a brief history of the North American free trade agreement, we discuss the use of gene editing and nuclear power technologies in the sustainable production of food and energy, respectively
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