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Abstract: This article explores the challenges of policy harmonization in a decentralized federal polity through a study of Canadian efforts to develop nationwide water export regulations over the past fifteen [...]

During the debate that led up to the implementation of a bilateral free-trade agreement between Canada and the United States on January 1, 1989, much was made of economists' claims that both nations could expect significant welfare improvements as a result of the removal of tariffs on traded goods. The welfare gains were expected to flow from average cost savings associated with the exploitation of scale economies. In this article, I show that it was overly optimistic to predict substantive, permanent average cost convergence as a result of adjustments in the scale of production among Canadian or American manufacturing firms. I conclude that the formation of reasonable expectations regarding the effects of trade-induced output adjustments should consider global- and local scale economies and should employ data that are not dominated by a single cycle of macroeconomic volatility., I. Introduction On January 1, 1989, a bilateral trade agreement between Canada and the United States came into effect. This free-trade agreement (FTA) called for the reduction and eventual removal [...]

Citizens' groups fought a tremendous campaign to prevent the signature of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and later NAFTA, not only on environmental and economic grounds, but also to avoid the Americanization of Canadian culture that this would inevitably bring about. Maude Barlow and her organization, The Council of Canadians, spearheaded this campaign. In this article Maude Barlow joins Canadian education writer Heather-jane Robertson in describing the effects of NAFTA on Canadian education in particular. Heather-jane Robertson b director of professional development for the Canadian Teachers Federation, a member of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and a frequent commentator for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. Barlow and Robertson are co-authors of Class Warfare: The Assault on Canada's Schools (1994), and Barlow is author of Parcel of Rogues (1991), a best-seller, and Take Back the Nation (1991) with Bruce Campbell., During the last decade, Canada has fundamentally realigned its orientation from east-west to north-south, in essence becoming part of a new borderless North American economy. The resulting harmonization can be [...]

This study tests the hypothesis that agents base their opinions about trade liberalization on the distribution effects as predicted by the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) model. The HOV model is utilized to derive the probable effect of a liberalization move on the returns to different Canadian occupations. The predicted effect is then compared with the opinions that Canadians with known occupations held about the proposed Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1988. It is found that these agents took positions that were generally consistent with the prediction from the HOV model.

The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was expected to reallocate workers from high-cost firms to low-cost firms, thus promoting specialization and trade creation. Instead, employment contracted across all industries during 1989-93 and real exports and imports contracted over most of the period. This trade destruction provides some evidence that the massive 1989-93 Canadian job losses were not primarily caused by the FTA. We further show that FTA tariff cuts account for no more than 15 per cent of the Canadian job losses. Restated, other factors (including the fight against inflation) explain more than 85 per cent of the job losses.

The reaction of the foreign exchange market to the news that a free trade agreement between the US and Canada would be signed is examined. It is shown that information regarding the free trade agreement had a significant effect on the volatility of the daily $US-$Canadian spot rate. Specifically, it is shown that information indicating a greater likelihood of the free trade agreement gaining approval usually lessened the volatility of the exchange rate, whereas information indicating less likelihood of approval had the opposite effect on the exchange rate.

The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) provides an excellent opportunity to analyze the impact of a comprehensive trade liberalization. In this paper, a stock market event study is employed to capture investors' expectations about the consequences of this agreement for manufacturing firms in Canada. The primary question addressed is whether abnormal stock market returns corresponding to news about the FTA are consistent with hypotheses based on comparative advantage and economies of scale. The results indicate that both comparative advantage and scale economies played a role in determining investors' perceptions of the impact of the FTA. Key words: Free trade; Stock market prices

The dispute over Canadian softwood lumber imports into the United States continued throughout 1993, spilling over into 1994. As in the 1992 Softwood Lumber disputes, the International Trade Commission (ITC) [...]

This study empirically estimates the impact of the U. S.-Canada FTA on specific iron and steel exports and imports using quarterly data for the period January 1981 to December 1990. A single equation multiple linear regression model is used to quantify at the industry and industry segment levels the impact of the agreement. The dependent variables are the quantities of major steel products traded between the two nations. The explanatory variables include foreign price adjusted for the exchange rate and tariff rate, domestic price, and the industrial production index. Results include calculation of price and income elasticities, which vary considerably by industry segments. The impact of free trade, as modeled, varies widely from product to product. As such it has important implications not only for government policy and employment but also for the adjustment problems faced by both the large integrated steel mill and the minimill producers., Introduction The United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA) provides the basis for a significant expansion of U.S.-Canadian trade. Both countries should gain at the macro level of economic activity. However, [...]

Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models used to characterise US, Canadian and Mexican economies in studying the economic consequences of the Canadian-US Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement find a significant impact on Canadian and Mexican economies and little effect on the US. The role of maket structure on trade flows is a new approach since the CGE is crude and highly aggregated. The behavior of Japanese firms exporting to the North American markets is applied to this framework.

The effects of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement on investment in the manufacturing industries of Canada is investigated. The stock market evidence is one aspect of investment analyzed which reflects expectations of investors about the consequences of the agreement. The second aspect of investment compares the stock market results with the actual investment patterns in Canada after the free trade agreement. Stock market evidence shows that investors expected the agreement to influence profits of Canadian industries. Investment spending were also influenced by the agreement.

The Canada-US and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has resulted in the differences between explicit and ad valorem barrier representations. Both agreements contain explicit liberalisation with full barrier removal and rearrangement of protection aside from the elimination of regional tariff. Models were developed to capture their effects but failed. Equilibrium computations were presented to show the importance of analyses through models to study the effects of NAFTA.

The major employment and wage trends in the US and Canadian markets are documented in the paper before and after Jan 1989 and to relate these trends to the economic climate after the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSTA) as to distinctly determine the impact of CUSTA on wages and employment. Canada had massive loss of jobs and inflexible wages compared to moderate job losses and wage declines in the US. Industry data show that CUSTA caused some of these job losses to a limited extent. Other sources of job losses include the automotive sector's poor performance and the slow response of Canadian wages production developments.

This study empirically estimates and evaluates the economic benefits of the U.S. and Canadian Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Most past studies rely on aggregate data. The analysis here emphasizes the trade effects of removing tariff and nontariff barriers on each commodity group classified by the Standard International Trade Classification. Estimating the amount of trade expansion under FTA for both countries involves using the import demand elasticities from a dynamic demand model. Results show that U.S. imports from Canada are more sensitive to domestic, import, and world prices than are Canadian imports from the United States. U.S. imports from Canada would increase roughly $3.257 billion compared to the $2.432 billion increase for Canadian imports from the United States., I. INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, a number of studies have provided the methodology to estimate benefits of a regional economic integration. One can estimate the benefits from cuts in [...]

Provisions in the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement establishing binational panels to resolve trade disputes violate the US Constitution and fail to protect the rights of US producers. Panel members are selected by US and Canadian governments jointly to serve on five-member panels for one year. Adjudications by these panels violate the Constitution because the positions are not for life, because panelists are not all selected by the US President and because the due process rights of US companies are not satisfied by the binational panels.

I. Introduction This Article will address the ways in which the provisions of the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA),(1) which took effect in 1989, and the North American Free [...]

The regional economic integration efforts illustrated by the European Community (EC) and the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are examined. The paper compares gains from integration when trade and factor flows are impeded by revenue-generating policies with those when trade impediments do not generate revenue. The elimination of non-revenue generating restrictions among member countries has very different effects from those predicted in the elimination of tariff restrictions. The optimal international integration strategy for a small country is outlined and discussed.

The Free Trade Agreement between the US and Canada has resulted in the relaxation of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, increase in demand for products from the neighboring nations as their prices decrease and the increase of demand for transportation services. Some restrictions in trade between the US and Canada are cultural industries, defense-related industries, financial services and agricultural products.

As the movement toward liberalization has succeeded in reducing or eliminating visible border barriers to trade, interest in and use of dispute settlement mechanisms have grown. For a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the general model will be the 1988 U.S.-Canadian Free Trade Agreement. Broad institutional and dispute settlement provisions along the lines of Chapter 18 of the U.S.-Canadian accord have already been agreed on in the NAFTA negotiations. More problematic is the extension of Chapter 19 to NAFTA. This special binational mechanism for dealing with anti-dumping and countervailing duty determinations depends for its success on the similarity of the U.S. and Canadian systems. Mexico has a different tradition and method of making such determinations. It is not clear whether the differences can be bridged. In other areas, such as standards--perhaps including the environment and labor--the U.S.-Canadian binational review principle or binational monitoring might be adapted to NAFTA. The outcome of the NAFTA negotiations on dispute settlement will probably be the model for other Western Hemisphere free trade agreements, although arrangements with groups of countries may be more difficult to adapt.

A location modelling approach is used to examine the impact on manufacturing and logistics of the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Two major changes that firms must specifically consider in the light of the FTA are distribution center locations and manufacturing supply points. The results of food industry simulations that consider multiple levels of integration, duties and cross-border transport rates show no significant changes in distribution system network design resulting from the trade pact.