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Lessons from NAFTA

Since 2000, GDAE’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program has carried out empirical research and analysis of the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement on Mexico. The treaty succeeded in increasing trade and foreign investment, but that success has not translated into dynamic economic growth, job creation, or improvements in the standards of living of most Mexicans.  The environmental costs of trade liberalization have also been high.

New Research:
Building on ten years of work on Mexico Under NAFTA

The Cost to Mexico of U.S. Corn Ethanol Expansion, May 2012. Timothy A. Wise, GDAE Working Paper, May 2012.

Trading Away Development:  The US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Kevin P. Gallagher,GDAE Globalization Commentary, from Triple Crisis Blog, October 3, 2011.

U.S. Trade Policy: Moving Backwards in the 21st Century, by Timothy A. Wise, GDAE Globalization Commentary, from Triple Crisis Blog, September 15, 2011.

Trading Away Stability and Growth: United States Trade Agreements in Latin America, by Kevin P. Gallagher, PERI Working Paper No. 266, September, 2011.

U.S. Trade Policy: Still Waiting for a "21st Century Trade Agreement," by Timothy A. Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher, LATN Brief, August, 2011.

Reforming U.S. FTAs for Environmental Protection: Lessons from Mexico and Beyond
.
by Kevin P. Gallagher, in A New Trade Policy for the United States: Lessons from Latin America, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, September 2010.

Rethinking Trade Policy for Development: Lessons From Mexico Under NAFTA
In this new Policy Outlook from the Carnegie Endowment, Eduardo Zepeda, Timothy A Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher offer a comprehensive assessment of Mexico's poor economic performance under NAFTA.

The Future of North American Trade Policy: Lessons From NAFTA
Kevin P. Gallagher, Enrique Dussel Peters and Timothy A. Wise present a set of concrete recommendations from a BU Task Force of experts on reforms to NAFTA and the template for U.S. trade agreements. This report is also available in Spanish.

Mexico: The Cost of U.S. Dumping - In this NACLA report, Timothy A. Wise finds that U.S. agricultural dumping under NAFTA resulted in Mexican farmers losing, on average, more than $1 billion per year during the nine-year period of 1997–2005, with more than half the losses suffered by the country's embattled corn farmers.

GDAE Publications on Mexico under NAFTA

Books:

The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization
By Kevin P. Gallagher and Roberto Porzecanski

Stanford University Press, 2010
Order from Stanford ($19.95 paperback)

The Enclave Economy: Foreign Investment and Sustainable Development in Mexico's Silicon Valley - Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky, The MIT Press, 2007.
In this detailed study of the impacts of high-tech foreign investment in Mexico, Gallagher and Zarsky show the limited development impacts from Mexico's open-economy policies.


Free Trade and the Environment: Mexico, NAFTA, and Beyond - Kevin P. Gallagher, Stanford University Press, 2004.
In this key work on NAFTA and the environment, Gallagher shows that by and large firms did not move to Mexico to take advantage of weaker environmental laws, as many feared, but neither has trade-led growth spurred improvements in Mexico's environmental regulations and enforcement.

Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico - Timothy A. Wise, Hilda Salazar, and Laura Carlsen (eds.), Kumarian Press and Editorial Miguel Angel Porrua, 2003. (Published in Spanish as Enfrentando la Globalizacion: Respuestas Sociales a la Integracion Economica de Mexico, Laura Carlsen, Tim Wise, and Hilda Salazar, eds., Editorial Miguel Angel Porrua, 2003.)

Papers, Articles and Reports (by topic)

Assessments   Agriculture   Investment  Environment

Assessments:

"Fixing NAFTA's Flaws," by Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy A. Wise, The Guardian, January 7, 2010.

Rethinking Trade Policy for Development: Lessons From Mexico Under NAFTA, by Eduardo Zepeda, Timothy A Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher, Carnegie Endowment Policy Outlook, December 2009.

The Future of North American Trade Policy: Lessons From NAFTA, Kevin P. Gallagher, Enrique Dussel Peters, and Timothy A. Wise (eds.), Pardee Center Task Force Report, Boston University, November 2009.

Reforming North American Trade Policy, by Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy A. Wise, Americas Program Commentary, December 3, 2009. (Also available in Spanish)

"Fix America's Trade Regime," by Kevin P. Gallagher, The Guardian, September 15, 2009.

“Nafta’s Unhappy Anniversary,” by Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy Wise, The Guardian, February 2009.  [See Spanish version in the Mexican daily La Jornada. See Portuguese and Spanish versions in Opinion Sur.]

“Competing for America’s Business,” by Kevin P. Gallagher, The Guardian, September 3, 2008.

“A New Approach to Free Trade,” by Kevin P. Gallagher, The Guardian, July 29, 2008.

“Free Trade’s False Promises,” by Kevin P. Gallagher, The Guardian, July 8, 2008.

"Sustainable Industrial Development? The Performance of Mexico’s FDI-led Integration Strategy," by Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky, November 2003.

"Nothing Fails Like Success: NAFTA's Sorry Track Record in Mexico" by Timothy A. Wise, Center for Popular Economics, September 1, 2003.

NAFTA's Untold Stories: Mexico's Grassroots Responses to North American Integration, Timothy A. Wise, Americas Program Policy Report (Silver City, NM: Interhemispheric Resource Center, June 10, 2003).

"NAFTA: A Cautionary Tale," by Timothy A. Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher, published by Foreign Policy in Focus and the "Americas Program" of the Interhemispheric Resource Center, October 24, 2002. (Also available in Spanish.)

"Fast Track: Fix It or Nix It" by Kevin Gallagher, published by Foreign Policy in Focus and the "Americas Program" of the Interhemispheric Resource Center, January 25, 2002. (Also available in Spanish.)

"Have Faith in Free Trade: The Greatest Story Oversold" (PDF) Kevin Gallagher, Foreign Policy in Focus, June 2001.

"Community Control in a Global Economy: Lessons from Mexico's Economic Integration Process" (PDF)  Timothy A. Wise and Eliza Waters, GDAE Working Paper 01-03, February 2001.

Agriculture:

The Cost to Mexico of U.S. Corn Ethanol Expansion, May 2012. Timothy A. Wise, GDAE Working Paper, May 2012.

Mexico: The Cost of U.S. Dumping, by Timothy A. Wise, NACLA Report on the Americas, January/February, 2011.

Small-Scale Farmers and Development: Assume a different economic model, by Timothy Wise, GDAE Globalization Commentary, from Triple Crisis Blog, September 27, 2010.

Who Pays for Agricultural Dumping? Farmers in developing countries, by Timothy Wise, GDAE Globalization Commentary, from Triple Crisis Blog, July 29, 2010.

“Hogging the Gains From Trade: The Real Winners from U.S. Tradeand Agricultural Policies” by Timothy A. Wise and Betsy Rakocy, GDAE Policy Brief 10-01, January 2010.

Agricultural Dumping Under NAFTA: Estimating the Costs of U.S. Agricultural Policies to Mexican Producers by Timothy A. Wise, Mexican Rural Development Research Report No. 7, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2010. (An earlier version appeared as GDAE Working Paper No. 09-08, December 2009.)

"Policy Space for Mexican Maize: Protecting Agro-biodiversity by Promoting Rural Livelihoods," by Timothy A. Wise, GDAE Working Paper No. 07-01, February, 2007. (This paper has also been published in Spanish.)

"Revaluing Peasant Coffee Production: Organic and Fair Trade Markets in Mexico," by Muriel Calo and Timothy A. Wise, October 2005.

"The Environmental Costs of Agricultural Trade Liberalization: Mexico-U.S. Maize Trade Under NAFTA," Alejandro Nadal and Timothy A. Wise. Working Group Discussion Paper DP04, June 2004.

"A Fate Worse Than NAFTA: Mexico's Failure to Implement Farm Protections," by Timothy A. Wise, Center for Popular Economics, November 17, 2003.

"Fields of Free Trade: Mexico's Small Farmers in a Global Economy," by Timothy A. Wise, Dollars & Sense, November/December 2003.

"Free Trade, Corn, and the Environment: Environmental Impacts of US-Mexico Corn Trade Under NAFTA," Frank Ackerman, Timothy A. Wise, Kevin P. Gallagher, Luke Ney, and Regina Flores, in Trade and Environment in North America: Key Findings for Agriculture and Energy (Montreal: North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, 2003), and published with permission as GDAE Working Paper No. 03-06, June 2003.

"Is the United States a Pollution Haven?" by Frank Ackerman, published by Foreign Policy in Focus and the "Americas Program" of the Interhemispheric Resource Center, March 1, 2002.  (Also available in Spanish.)

Investment:

Reforming US Investment Treaties: Recommendations from State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, Kevin P. Gallagher, recommendations presented in a Senate briefing, December 10, 2009.

Don't Expect Apples From a Pear Tree: Foreign Direct Investment and Innovation in Mexico, Enrique Dussel Peters, Working Group Discussion Paper DP28, November 2009

Obama's Tricky Trip to El Salvador, by Kevin P. Gallagher, Policy Innovations, Carnegie Council, March 24, 2011.

Obama's "New" Trade Policy: What Happened to Multilateralism? by Kevin Gallagher, Policy Innovations, Carnegie Council, March 22, 2010.

"U.S. BITs and Financial Stability," by Kevin P. Gallagher, Vale Columbia Center Policy Brief #19, February 2010.

“FDI Spillovers and Sustainable Industrial Development: Evidence from U.S. Firms in Mexico’s Silicon Valley,” Lyuba Zarsky, Kevin Gallagher. Working Group Discussion Paper DP18, April 2008.

"Multinationals and the “Maquila Mindset” in Mexico’s Silicon Valley," by Lyuba Zarsky and Kevin P. Gallagher, Americas Program Policy Brief, Interhemispheric Resource Center, October 12, 2007.

"The Missing Links between Foreign Investment and Development: Lessons from Costa Rica and Mexico," February, 2006. Eva A. Paus and Kevin P. Gallagher.

"NAFTA, Foreign Direct Investment, and Development in Mexico", by Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky, Americas Program Policy Brief, Interhemispheric Resource Center, January 28, 2004.

"Economic Reform, Energy, and Development: The Case of Mexican Manufacturing" Francisco Aguayo and Kevin P. Gallagher, GDAE Working Paper 03-05, July 2003.

"The Fiscal Impacts of Investment Provisions in U.S. Trade Agreements" by Kevin P. Gallagher and Frank Ackerman, published by Taxpayers for Common Sense, May 2002.

Environment:

Reforming U.S. FTAs for Environmental Protection: Lessons from Mexico and Beyond, by Kevin P. Gallagher, in A New Trade Policy for the United States: Lessons from Latin America, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, September 2010.

"Is NAFTA Working For Mexico?" by Kevin P. Gallagher, The Environmental Forum, May/June 2006.

"Testing Two Views Of Trade's Environmental Impacts," interview with Kevin P. Gallagher in EcoAmericas, February 2005.

"Free Trade and the Environment: Mexico, NAFTA, and Beyond," by Kevin P. Gallagher, Americas Program Policy Brief, Interhemispheric Resource Center, September 17, 2004. (Published in Spanish in La Jornada en la Economia, August 9, 2004, "Libre Comercio y Ecologia: El Paraiso Contaminante."

"Economic Integration and the Environment in Mexico: Lessons for Future Trade Agreements," Kevin P. Gallagher. Working Group Discussion Paper DP06, June 2004.

"Economic Analysis in Environmental Reviews of Trade Agreements: Assessing the North American Experience" by Kevin P. Gallagher, Frank Ackerman, and Luke Ney, April 2002. 

"A Retrospective Review of FERC's Environmental Impact Statement on Open Transmission Access," a report for the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation on energy deregulation in North America, co-authored by Frank Ackerman with Tim Woolf, Geoff Keith, and David White of Synapse Energy Economics, October 19, 2001.  (Available as PDF file from Synapse web site.)

"Is NACEC a Model Trade and Environment Institution? Lessons from Mexican Industry,"  Kevin P. Gallagher, GDAE Working Paper 01-08, October 2001. (The final version of this paper is now available as "The CEC and Environmental Quality: Assessing the Mexican Experience," in John Knox and David Markel, eds., Greening NAFTA: The Experience and Potential of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2002.)

"Dirt is in the Eye of the Beholder: The World Bank Air Pollution Intensities for Mexico" Francisco Aguayo, Kevin P. Gallagher, and Ana Citlalic Gonz^lez, GDAE Working Paper 01-07, July 2001.

"Trade Liberalization and Industrial Pollution in Mexico: Lessons for the FTAA." Kevin Gallagher, GDAE Working Paper 00-07, October 2000. This paper is no longer available as a GDAE Working Paper, as it appears as "Industrial Pollution in Mexico: Did the NAFTA Matter?" in The Environment and the FTAA: What Can We Learn from the NAFTA Experience? Carolyn Deere and Daniel Esty (eds). (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).

"Trade Liberalization and Pollution Intensive Industries in Developing Countries: A Partial Equilibrium Approach." (PDF) Kevin Gallagher and Frank Ackerman, GDAE Working Paper 00-03, January 2000.

Other:

“The Politics of Patents and Drugs in Brazil and Mexico: The Industrial Bases of Health Policies,” by Ken Shadlen, Comparative Politics, forthcoming 2009 (earlier version appeared as GDAE Working Paper No. 07-05, December 2007).

Mexico in the NAFTA Era:
Collaboration with The Science, Technology, and Development Program (PROCIENTEC) at the Colegio de Mexico: GDAE has collaborated with this Mexico City-based institute since 2000 on a wide variety of projects, including economic theory, industrial development, and agriculture. Further information on the institute and a partial selection of its publications are available on this web site (click here)