Regional Integration In Latin America And The Caribbean

This collection is a sober assessment of the state of regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean. It studies the question from four perspectives: economic, institutional, political, and in relation to the rest of the world. It considers the questions raised by LAC countries' efforts to use 'new' regionalism to address the challenges of globalization and to explore the nature and meaning of open regionalism. This thematic treatment draws on the experience of the different schemes currently in place in the region: NAFTA, CACM, CARICOM, the Andean Community and MERCOSUR. It also examines the nature of globalization, including concerns over the relationship between regionalism and the multilateral system. There is now a broad consensus among LAC countries that regional integration can help them adjust to the new world order, but there is much less agreement on how to achieve it and what reforms are needed to bring it about.

What can be said of Latin America and the Caribbean's experiment with regional integration? Did it live up to the expectations? What does this experience say about the regional integration agenda moving forward? Do the tectonic changes undergone by the world economy in the last quarter of a century matter for policy design? This report offers answers to these pressing questions. It argues that while the "new regionalism" was in general effective to promote international trade, it failed to boost the region's competitiveness abroad. Fragmentation is seen as the original sin, and convergence the path to redemption. The policy recommendations offer different routes to convergence, from a cautious, cumulation of rules or origin approach to a non-stop sprint to a LAC-FTA. But they all come with a warning: in the current challenging trade environment, the benefits of caution might be too little, too late.

As regionalisation becomes an increasingly hot topic, the authors explain why regionalism has been most successful in Latin America and analyse current processes and opinions of possible future developments in the region, including the Caribbean, Central America, Brazil, and Mexico.

"An attempt to answer some general and specific questions regarding regional integration, such as: Why should integration be encouraged? What kind of integration should be encouraged? Which mechanisms and instruments are most suitable for integrating economies at this point? How do the new integration plans differ from those of the 1960s and 1970s? The answers to these and other questions 'are based on the core premise that recent integration efforts have generally involved the interaction of two types of phenomena:' trade liberalization and deregulation policies introduced at the national level; and explicit agreements or policies which entail certain preferences with respect to the treatment accorded other nations"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57

This book proposes a renewal of 'Open Regionalism' in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) aimed at achieving the region's goals of high growth with stability. The LAC region experienced a growth spurt with equity during the first decade of the 21st Century. It is well understood that an unsustainable demand boom fueled by terms-of-trade improvements drove this growth acceleration episode, especially in South America. Unfortunately, terms of trade are no longer fueling growth, and the region’s policymakers are in search of new sources of growth with stability. With the experience of East Asia and the Pacific in mind, many policymakers in LAC are looking to international economic ties as a potential source of stable growth. The challenge highlighted in this book lies in designing an integration agenda comprising trade and factor market integration that is conducive to region-wide efficiency gains, which can help LAC enhance its global competitiveness. The forces of geography imply that pro-growth global integration cannot be achieved without building a strong neighborhood. Thus, this volume argues that LAC's regional economic integration agenda needs to go well beyond the current spaghetti bowl of preferential trading arrangements.

Latin American and Caribbean Trade Agreements: Keys to a Prosperous Community of the Americas is the essential reference guide for companies trading with Latin America and the Caribbean or wishing to use a country in the region as an export platform. This work fills the void in academic texts that are used to teach courses on economic integration in the Western Hemisphere. It provides a road map for the Obama Administration to launch an ambitious project designed to encourage economic growth, promote energy security, and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time realistically meeting the development needs of Latin America and the Caribbean. Latin American and Caribbean Trade Agreements: Keys to a Prosperous Community of the Americas posits that the myopic focus of past United States administrations on free markets to spur economic development in the Western Hemisphere is not enough. A bolder and more ambitious project that also seeks to redress many of the deep-seated problems that have long plagued the region is required. The Community of the Americas proposed in this book rests upon the important work that has already been done at the sub-regional level in terms of economic and political reform, identifying infrastructure and human capital needs, and regulating migration. It provides a new and cohesive vision for U.S. policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.