North American Free Trade Agreement (north + american_free_trade_agreement)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Does NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) Chapter 19 make a difference?

CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 2 2000
Dispute settlement, the incentive structure of U.S./Canada unfair trade petitions
NAFTA Chapter 19 sets up bilateral review panels to replace the domestic judicial appeals process of resolving disputes among NAFTA members over the enforcement of unfair trade laws. In principle, such panels can change the incentive structure of filing unfair trade law petitions by reducing the likelihood of an affirmative finding of injurious unfair trade. Using data from U.S. and Canadian unfair trade petition filings, empirical tests show support for this hypothesis. However, a more comprehensive settlement of conflicts will require progressive legal integration, including an extension of national treatment measures to alleged "unfair trade" that is not currently envisaged under the NAFTA. [source]


Entrepreneurial Scripts and the New Transaction Commitment Mindset: Extending the Expert Information Processing Theory Approach to Entrepreneurial Cognition Research

ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE, Issue 4 2009
J. Brock Smith
In this study, we extend the expert information processing theory approach to entrepreneurial cognition research through an empirical exploration of the new transaction commitment mindset among business people in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Using analysis of covariance, multivariate analysis of variance, and hierarchical regression analysis of data from a cross-sectional sample of 417 respondents, our results provide a foundation for additional cross-level theory development, with related implications for increasing the practicality of expert information processing theory-based entrepreneurial cognition research. Specifically, this paper: (1) clarifies the nature of the relationship between entrepreneurial expert scripts and constructs that might represent an entrepreneurial mindset at the individual level of analysis; (2) identifies analogous relationships at the economy level of analysis, where the structure found at the individual level informs an economy-level problem; (3) presents a North American Free Trade Agreement-based illustration analysis to demonstrate the extent to which cognitive findings at the individual level can be used to explain economy-level phenomena; and (4) extrapolates from our analysis some of the ways in which script-based comparisons across country or culture can inform the more general task of making information processing-based comparisons among entrepreneurs across other contexts. [source]


Upgrading, uneven development, and jobs in the North American apparel industry

GLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 2 2003
Jennifer Bair
In this article we examine the developmental consequences of globalization at multiple scales, using a commodity chains framework to investigate the case of the North American apparel industry. In the first section we outline the apparel commodity chain and offer a brief typology of its lead firms. In the second section we discuss the concept of industrial upgrading and describe several main export roles in the global apparel industry. In the third section we focus on the regional dynamics resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). We contrast the Mexican experience with that of countries in the Caribbean Basin to show the impact of distinct trade policies on export-oriented development. We argue that NAFTA is creating upgrading opportunities for some Mexican firms to move from the low value-added export-oriented assembly (or maquila) model to full-package production. In the fourth section we explore the unevenness of upgrading dynamics through a comparison of two blue jeans manufacturing clusters in the United States and Mexico: El Paso and Torreon. Our conclusions about upgrading and uneven development in the North American apparel industry emphasize the importance of local, national and regional institutional contexts in shaping inter-firm networks and their development impact. [source]


The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Regional Disparities in Mexico

GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2002
Javier Sánchez-Reaza
After a long period of industrialization based on import substitution (ISI), Mexico started to open up its economy by accessing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986. The export-promotion strategy was transformed into one of regional integration with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. The paper explores the impact of the opening of the economy on regional disparities in Mexico using , and ,-convergence analyses. Four different samples have been employed to control for possible data bias linked to the inclusion of oil-producing and maquiladora-based states. The results show that whereas the final stages of the ISI period were dominated by convergence trends, trade liberalization (GATT) and economic integration (NAFTA) have led to divergence. In particular, the NAFTA period is related to divergence regardless of the type of analysis chosen and the sample used. [source]


Dispute resolution in federal systems

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 167 2001
Michael Crommelin
This article deals selectively with four broad approaches to conflict management in federal systems of government: formal dispute resolution,informal dispute resolution, dispute avoidance, and popular dispute resolution. Courts undertake the task of formal dispute resolution through judicial review: issues of current significance include judicial concepts of federalism, the reference jurisdiction, Scottish devolution, and supranational federalism and the European Court of Justice. Examples of informal dispute resolution are few. The South African Constitution includes a provision, requiring parties to an intergovernmental dispute to exhaust all other remedies before resorting to litigation. The dispute resolution process contained in chapter 20 of the North American Free Trade Agreement may stimulate experimentation with similar models in federal systems. Dispute avoidance techniques are many and varied; they include the drafting of constitutional instruments and the use of intergovernmental forums within and outside the constitutional framework. The electoral process may be employed in federal systems to determine the fate of governments, specific legislative measures and proposed constitutional amendments. Each federal society has its own culture of conflict management, which exerts a subtle but significant influence on the operation of, and the relationship among, dispute resolution systems. [source]


Agricultural trade in North America: Trade creation, regionalism and regionalisation

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2003
Dragan Miljkovic
Trade creation in agricultural products is defined as a statistically significant positive break in the trend function of the growth in exports and imports between member countries. The present study attempts to determine the time of any break in the trend of real exports and imports between the Canada,USA Free Trade Agreement (CUSTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) member countries for the years 1980:I through 1999:II, and document the scale of the phenomenon. The present study finds trade creation only occurs in USA agricultural exports to Canada because of CUSTA. The results confirm the theory that the regionalism of NAFTA did not lead to regionalisation or an increasing share of intraregional international trade. [source]


Reworking the NAFTA: Departures from Traditional Frameworks

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2001
Garth J. Holloway
This paper reviews the treatment of intellectual property rights in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and considers the welfare-theoretic bases for innovation transfer between member and nonmember states. Specifically, we consider the effects of new technology development from within the union and question whether it is efficient (in a welfare sense) to transfer that new technology to nonmember states. When the new technology contains stochastic components, the important issue of information exchange arises and we consider this question in a simple oligopoly model with Bayesian updating. In this context, it is natural to ask the optimal price at which such information should be transferred. Some simple, natural conjugate examples are used to motivate the key parameters upon which the answer is dependent. L'article que void analyse comment I' Accord de libre-échange nord-américain (ALENA) traite la protection de la propriété intellectuelle et s,attarde sur les principes théoriques du bien-Aêtre résultant du transfert de I' innovation entre etats membres et non membres. Plus précisément, I'auteur examine les consequences de I'élaboration d'une nouvelle technologie au sein de I'union économique et s'interroge sur I'efficacité (sous I'angle du bien-être social) du transfert de cette technologie aux états non membres. L'importante question du partage de l'information surgit dès que la nouvelle technologie inclut des elements stochastiques. L'auteur étudie cette question en prenant pour modèle un simple oligopole actualisé par la méthode bayesienne. Dans un tel contexte, il est naturel de réclamer le prix optimal auquel il devrait y avoir partage de I' information. Quelques exemples simples, à conjugué naturel, servent à faire ressortir les principaux paramètres sur lesquels repose la réponse è la question examinée. [source]