Regional trade agreements are more likely to produce negative effects on nonmembers the larger and the more protected they are. Because MERCOSUR countries are efficient producers of the most protected products in the world –agricultural and agro-industrial products-, these countries suffer...

This paper presents the correlation between the annual fluctuations of the terms of trade of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The period under analysis is 1980-2001 and the main findings are that the four countries have a high to moderate synchronization of their export prices, a...