The interest of specific Latin American economies in the successful completion of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations is very heterogeneous. A list of relevant factors to explain such divergences would include geographic orientation of trade, composition of exports, degree of...

In the last 15 years or so Mercosur countries have implemented trade liberalization reforms both unilaterally and at regional level. These reforms have been successful in promoting overall trade flows, but not so much with respect to exports to developed countries. This is particularly the case...

The centrifugal forces of economic globalization in the 1990's ran parallel with centripetal forces of regionalization. While seemingly pulling in opposite directions, the two forces reflected complementary dimensions of dynamic capitalist market development. The completion of the Uruguay Round...

In October 2000, the twelve countries of South America launched, a multinational, multisectoral and multidisciplinary initiative, whose main objective is to develop the region's infrastructure within a context of environmental sustainability. Supported by the Inter-American Development Bank...

The proliferation of free trade agreements around the world has accentuated the role of preferential rules of origin (RoO) in global companies¿ sourcing and investment decisions. However, there are few theoretical and practically no empirical analyses on the effects of RoO on foreign direct...

The recent developments at the multilateral and regional fronts call for a re-evaluation of trade and integration options for MERCOSUR. Applying a brand new CGE model, we evaluated six scenarios. The simulation results indicate that trade agreements will generate relatively small but positive...

What are the main issues in Chile's trade agenda? This paper argues that the country's agenda does not lend itself to that traditional kind of policy advice usually given throughout Latin America. Protection is low and uniform, institutions that govern trade policy are strong and well protected...

Brazil and the United States are key players in world agricultural and food markets. The agri-food system in both countries is very large in absolute and relative terms. Both are net exporters of agricultural and food products and major recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the food...

Economic and political integration have been a perennial and neuralgic issue in the Caribbean agenda. This paper draws on the literature on trade, growth and regional agreements to discuss the motivation behind the Caribbean drive for integration, the results obtained so far and what is in stock...

This paper analyzes the asymmetries and complementarities between Brazil's and China's agricultural sectors. Brazil and China are key players in world agriculture. Both countries are among the world's top five producers and exporters of agricultural products and have a significant portion of...