Proposed North American Free Trade Research Articles

Interstate 49 Connector: Urban and Sustainable Design

The Interstate 49 Connector project is an approximate 5.5-mile segment of limited access, highway development plan needed for continuous access between an interstate route and a Federal- Aid highway system. The project is part of a proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) highway that will connect Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. At present, I-49 transitions into a four-lane highway with little control access. Connecting Interstate 10 and Highway 90 into a continuous arterial will link two economically beneficial interstate routes, and concurrently provide citizens of southern Louisiana with a safe, emergency evacuation route. In 2014, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Community Design Workshop (CDW) was contracted to work with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LaDOTD)/Lafayette Connector Partners (LCP) Team to address the proposed I-49 Connector project in Lafayette, Louisiana. Acting as a think tank to the consultant planning firms, the CDW provided support at community group-work meetings, public meetings and used the studio for uncovering and exploring issues of Urban Design and Sustainable Design. During the past four years, the CDW has run eight graduate studios to study two primary areas designated as the Northern Entry Gateway into the city and the Core Area around the downtown and traditional neighborhoods. Each area, taken from an urban, contextual perspective and environmental perspective, has its own unique character and physical makeup.

Two reviews: NAFTA and the zapatistas

At the beginning of 1990, the Institute of Economic Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico brought together 16 experts to examine the many implications for Mexico of the proposed North American Free Trade Area Treaty with the United States and Canada. The partici? pants were particularly charged with the task of evaluating the changes that were taking place in respect to the relationships between Mexico and the United States. The authors published the first edition of their papers in 1990, and for this third edition of 1992, at a time when the Treaty was still under negotiation, they revised and enlarged their contributions. With the ap? proval of NAFTA in November of 1993 and its having been in effect since January 1994, this is a good time to weigh the cogency of their analyses. The current instability and declining course of the Mexican economy confirms the accuracy of a number of the authors' predictions of the nega? tive consequences of the Treaty for an economy characterized by deep structural discrepancies, manifested in the vulnerability of its external and financial sectors, the insufficient modernization of its productive structures, its low productivity, and its abysmal social inequalities, the latter a condi? tion of explosive proportions. The authors were originally convened at a time when the Mexican economy was confronted by the major uncertainties brought about by the formal culmination of the process of its indiscriminate opening to external penetration and its growing subordination and dependency, a process that had been underway for a number of years. The book contains the work of

The Translog Cost Function and Import Demand: The Case of Mexico

The purpose of this paper is to estimate for Mexico an aggregate transcendental logarithmic cost function which includes imports as a factor of production. The nature of Mexico's demand for imports will be given particular attention, since this relationship has implications for the outcomes of many government policies, including changing tariff rates and subsidies. Moreover, it may take on even greater importance as a result of the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the past, Mexico has tried to limit imports through a number of policies, including tariffs, tax penalties and/or incentives, import quotas, licenses, restrictions on access to foreign exchange, and policies to encourage domestic production to substitute for imports. Recently, however, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has acted to reduce Mexico's barriers to imports, particularly by unilaterally lowering tariff barriers. In addition, President Salinas has actively supported the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Technology and input demand: The case of Mexican steel scrap imports

The proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will very likely have profound effects on the organization of industries in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In the case of Mexico, its impacts will be accompanied by a rationalization of production that can be expected to follow the privatization of many industries that were, in large part, government-owned. Perhaps one of the most interesting questions is how freer trade and the rationalization of production will affect the sourcing of inputs for key industries. The Mexican steel industry presents an interesting case, because many changes that are consistent with cost-minimizing behavior have already been implemented. Nonetheless, the demand for inputs such as scrap will depend significantly on the technological choices that take place as the NAFTA partners expand production and achieve dynamic gains from freer trade.

Capital Concentration, Mexican Conglomerates and the Proposed North American Free Trade Agreement

Current research on the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has neglected capital concentration in Mexico and the effect that free trade would have on Mexico's conglomerates. Data presented in this paper suggest that private Mexican conglomerates have benefited from trade liberalization while the working class and poor have suffered. It is argued that further liberalization under NAFTA would reinforce these effects.

The Effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement on the Canada-United States Trade Relationship

Much of the popular discussion of the effects of the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Canada as well as a number of more academic general assessments have concentrated on the effects of adding Mexico to the previously established Canada-United States Free Trade Area (e.g., Harris and Cox, 1992; Watson, 1992; 1993; Wonnacott, 1993). These studies generally conclude that the economic effects of such an expansion of the currently existing free trade area would be small and only marginally beneficial to Canada. However, this outcome is presented as preferable to the possible alternative of a bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico, from which Canada is excluded. Such a bilateral agreement would allow Mexico to compete more effectively with Canada in the US market and cause some trade substitution away from Canadian and toward Mexican commodities. It would also make the United States the hub and Canada and Mexico the spokes of a so-called 'hub-and-spokes' system in which only a company located in the US would have relatively unfettered access to the entire North American market. This scenario could encourage investment in the United States at the expense of both Canada and Mexico (Gestrin and Rugman, 1993; Lipsey et al., 1993; Rugman and Gestrin, 1993; Waverman, 1993; Wonnacott, 1993). If the United States continued in this direction and negotiated liberalizing trade agreements with other Latin American countries, the situation would be even worse (Wonnacott, 1993). Canada can do nothing about the increased competition from Mexico in US markets resulting from a US-Mexico accord. However, it can avoid granting the United States the exclusive privilege of access to all of North America, and perhaps ultimately the Americas, by obtaining such access itself through joining the NAFTA. This story represents a simple and persuasive argument in favour of Canadian participation in the NAFTA. However, as most of the authors telling it recognize, it is not the whole story. The NAFTA is much more than the expansion of the Canada-US Free Trade Area to include Mexico. The negotiation of the NAFTA has involved a recasting of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in a number of important

The North American Free Trade Agreement: Implications for the Partiees and World Oil Markets

The proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been criticized because it failed to open Mexico`s hydrocarbon reserves to development by private parties. This failure is an economic tragedy. Consumer welfare will clearly be reduced as a consequence. However, the loss is confined to Mexico where economic growth rates may be reduced by as much as one half of one percent per year. Otherwise, the agreement will have insignificant impacts on the world oil market. Future levels of production and prices will be unaffected by the agreement. 24 refs., 6 tabs.

Technology transfer in Mexico: Past patterns and new problems related to the North American free trade agreement

AbstractAs the Mexican economy prepares to transition from a relatively closed and protected market to a regionally integrated free market which is part of the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a change in its technology licensing environment will be needed to enable Mexican companies to compete for technology with firms from the other member countries of the NAFTA. This study identifies the national sources which have provided Mexico with technology and the Mexican industrial sectors which have been able to attract this technology in the 1980s. It further evaluates the current licensing environments in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.A. as well as in the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA). The study provides recommendations for changes to the Mexican licensing environment and proposes strategies for attracting technology to Mexican industry under the changed conditions which would be introduced by the NAFTA. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

After NAFTA: The Long‐Term Benefits

It's getting down to decision time. The U.S. Congress will soon vote on the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The October 1992 accord, hammered out after many months of intense negotiation, would eliminate nearly all tariffs and other trade barriers between the United States, Canada, and Mexico over the next 15 years. A mammoth free trade zone from Canada's Yukon Territory south to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula would form the world's largest and richest trading bloc—encompassing 360 million people and economies that annually produce $6.6 trillion in goods and services.

Effects of economic integration in industrial countries on ASEAN and the Asian NIEs

This paper assesses the effect of the proposed North American Free Trade Area, the second enlargement of the European Community (EC) and EC-1992 on Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and South Korea. By matching the commodities exported by ASEAN or South Korea to an integrating market (such as the United States) with those exported to the same market from “internal” sources (such as Canada), it identifies the industries that would bear the brunt of the discrimination. Total trade diversion is estimated (as a terms-of-trade effect) at 4% of ASEAN exports and 5% of South Korean exports to North America; and 8 and 5% of their respective exports to the EC. EC-1992 is expected to have further discriminatory influences. The effect of integration on direct foreign investment in ASEAN and South Korea is also evaluated.

The Proposed North American Free Trade Agreement and the Implications for U.S.-Mexico Relations

The Proposed North American Free Trade Agreement and the Implications for U.S.-Mexico Relations