This book assesses South America's most ambitious attempt at economic integration, Mercosur, explaining the main - and inherent - weaknesses of the integration effort, through explicit comparison with the European experience with integration

This book analyses the economic implications of the most important regional integration agreement in Latin America, the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR). Accordingly empirical evidence and theoretical arguments on the costs and benefits of MERCOSUR are provided and the effects of the...

Latin America's experience with regional economic integration has been only slightly shorter than that of Europe. In fact, the first attempt at integration started as early as 1960, with the creation of LAFTA - the Latin American Free Trade Area (subsequently replaced by LAIA - the Latin...

Chapter 1: Latin American integration: a Brazilian view -- Chapter 2: Brazilian thought and regional integration in the 20th century -- Chapter 3: The role of regional integration for Brazil: autonomy, universalism, and the elite´s perception -- Chapter 4: The social Mercosur -- Chapter 5: The...