The few empirical studies which examine the effects of preferential trade liberalization on growth find no direct relationship between membership in a PTA and growth across countries. This is somewhat surprising, given the large literature which argues that trade liberalization is likely to...

In light of ongoing concern about commodity specialization in Latin America, this paper revisits the argument of Prebisch (1950) that, over the long term, declining terms of trade would frustrate the development goals of the region. This paper has two main objectives. The first is to clarify the...

Since the mid-1990s, the two regional trade agreements in South America, the southern Mercosur Pact (among Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), and the northern Andean Pact (among Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru) noticeably affected certain trade patterns between the two...

During 1996-2000, U.S. imports of milk protein concentrate (MPC) increased rapidly. At the same time, Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) stocks of non-fat dry milk (NFDM) went from nothing to more than 500 million pounds. Consequently, U.S. milk producers attributed low milk prices and dairy...

Using a comparative-static general equilibrium model and in the context of the western hemisphere, this paper compares the economic effects of a "hub-and-spokes (HAS)" type of bilateral trade configuration (with Chile being the hub) with those of a more comprehensive regional FTA (namely, the...

One of the most contentious debates today is whether pollution-intensive industries seek locations with weak environmental standards, turning these locations into 'pollution havens." Empirical studies to date show little evidence to support the pollution haven hypothesis, but suffer potentially...