GDAE Launches New Publications on “Lessons from NAFTA”
Building on ten years of research on the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Mexico, GDAE’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program launched several new publications on reforming North American trade policies based on the NAFTA experience. Two new reports were launched at an event on Dec. 9th at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington: <!--break-->
* “Rethinking Trade Policy for Development: Lessons from Mexico Under NAFTA”, a Policy Outlook paper from the Carnegie Endowment by Carnegie’s Eduardo Zepeda and GDAE’s Timothy A. Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher, reviews the evidence on Mexico’s weak economic performance under NAFTA.
* “The Future of North American Trade Policy: Lessons from NAFTA” is a Pardee Center Task Force Report from Boston University, coordinated by GDAE’s Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy A. Wise, along with Enrique Dussel Peters. The report reviews NAFTA and makes concrete recommendations for reform.
The reports present a detailed critique of NAFTA’s weaknesses for Mexico, which experienced a dramatic rise in trade and foreign investment but saw slow economic growth, sluggish job creation, and continued environmental degradation. The Task Force’s trade-policy experts from the three NAFTA countries offer detailed analyses and proposals for reform in eight key areas: services, manufacturing, agriculture, investment, intellectual property, labor, environment, and migration.
Both reports recommend changes to U.S. trade policy that go far deeper than the 2007 bipartisan agreement on reforms to the labor, environmental, and intellectual property provisions of more recent U.S. agreements, such as the one with Peru. Gallagher, Wise, and some of their co-authors briefed Congress members and staff this week.
The new reports are part of a series of publications that build on GDAE’s ten-years of research on “Lessons from NAFTA.” This week, GDAE also released:
* “Agricultural Dumping under NAFTA,” a GDAE Working Paper by Timothy A. Wise that estimates the costs to Mexican producers of U.S. agricultural dumping at $12.8 billion from 1997-2005.
* “Reforming North American Trade Policy,” an Americas Program Commentary by Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy A. Wise that summarizes the Pardee Center report’s policy recommendations.
* “Foreign Direct Investment and Innovation in Mexico,” a Working Group Discussion Paper by Enrique Dussel Peters that adds to GDAE’s body of work on Foreign Investment for Development.
Read more on GDAE’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program
Read more on GDAE’s research on “Mexico Under NAFTA”