The face of international trade is continuing to change rapidly. But while much attention is focused on where, post-Cancun, any new international negotiations under the auspices of the WTO may go, there are other developments of potentially equal importance. The United States, in particular, is prioritizing new regional trade agreements. This book focuses on the most ambitious of these negotiations -- the Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement, which is due to be completed in 2005. This US initiative aims to replicate the NAFTA Agreement (which has bound the US, Canada and Mexico into a free trade area since 1994) across all 34 countries of South and North America (bar Cuba). This huge continental market is to be built around US-defined notions of free trade and protection of foreign investment, but will exclude the free movement of labour. This volume explains the origins and process of the negotiations -- both the complicated multilateral discussions and the bilateral agreements that have already been drafted. It explains in detail: * US strategy. * The structures and procedures of the Agreement. * The possible consequences for South America, including: Mercosur; Brazil, as Latin America's largest economy; and the region's many small economies, which cannot possibly compete on a level playing field with the US behemoth. * The wider implications of the FTAA for the global trading system, in particular for China, Japan and the EU. This book -- the first comprehensive, in-depth study of the FTAA -- will be of use to trade specialists, international economists, and all those interested in the FTAA, about which very little information is readily available in the public domain.

Over a decade ago, Jorge Castañeda wrote the classic Utopia Unarmed, which offered a penetrating and comprehensive account of the Latin American left’s fate at the end of the Cold War. Since then, the left across Latin America has travelled in paths no one could have predicted. Latin American nations from Mexico to Argentina wavered for years between leftism and American-supported neoliberalism, but in recent years the left has experienced a tremendous resurgence throughout the region. However, the left is not unified, and as Castañeda, Morales, and their contributors show, it has followed two distinct paths – a more cosmopolitan style leftism, exemplified by Brazil and Chile, and a left fuelled by populist nationalism that has clear debts to Perón or Cárdenas, and is most evident in Venezuela, Mexico’s PRD, Bolivia, and Argentina. Leftovers comprehensively updates this very important story, with country and area specialists contributing.

The authors deal with economic policy and the financial development of Brazil. It also presents a description of the financial system that was created in Brazil. The book covers developments in the financial markets, giving emphasis to the programs of debt conversion and privatization.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986.

Global consumption of natural gas is generally expected to double by 2030. However, in the areas of highest-expected demand, the consumption of gas is expected to far outstrip indigenous supplies. This book explores the political challenges which may accompany a shift to a gas-fed world.

This book presents a radically different argument for what has caused, and likely will continue to cause, the collapse of emerging market economies. Pettis combines the insights of economic history, economic theory, and finance theory into a comprehensive model for understanding sovereign liability management and the causes of financial crises. He examines recent financial crises in emerging market countries along with the history of international lending since the 1820s to argue that the process of international lending is driven primarily by external events and not by local politics and/or economic policies. He draws out the corporate finance implications of this approach to argue that most of the current analyses of the recent financial crises suffered by Latin America, Asia, and Russia have largely missed the point. He then develops a sovereign finance model, analogous to corporate finance, to understand the capital structure needs of emerging market countries. Using this model, he finally puts into perspective the recent crises, a new sovereign liability management theory, the implications of the model for sovereign debt restructurings, and the new financial architecture. Bridging the gap between finance specialists and traders, on the one hand, and economists and policy-makers on the other, The Volatility Machine is critical reading for anyone interested in where the international economy is going over the next several years.

An array of internationally noted scholars examines the process of democratization in Southern Europe and Latin America. The authors provide new interpretations of both current and historical efforts of nations to end periods of authoritarian rule and to initiate transition to democracy, efforts that have met with widely varying degrees of success and failure. Extensive case studies of individual countries, a comparative overview, and a synthesis conclusions offer important insights for political scientists, students, and all concerned with the prospects for democracy. In Volume 3, despite the unique contexts of transitions in individual countries, significant points of comparison emerge — such as the influence of foreign nations and the role of agents outside the government. These analyses explore both intra- and interregional similarities and differences.

Recent decades have seen tremendous changes in Latin America's agricultural sector, resulting from a broad program of liberalization instigated under pressure from the United States, the IMF, and the World Bank. Tariffs have been lifted, agricultural markets have been opened and privatized, land reform policies have been restricted or eliminated, and the perspective has shifted radically toward exportation rather than toward the goal of feeding local citizens. Examining the impact of these transformations, the contributors to Food for the Few: Neoliberal Globalism and Biotechnology in Latin America paint a somber portrait, describing local peasant farmers who have been made responsible for protecting impossibly vast areas of biodiversity, or are forced to specialize in one genetically modified crop, or who become low-wage workers within a capitalized farm complex. Using dozens of examples such as these, the deleterious consequences are surveyed from the perspectives of experts in diverse fields, including anthropology, economics, geography, political science, and sociology. From Kathy McAfee's "Exporting Crop Biotechnology: The Myth of Molecular Miracles," to Liz Fitting's "Importing Corn, Exporting Labor: The Neoliberal Corn Regime, GMOs, and the Erosion of Mexican Biodiversity," Food for the Few balances disturbing findings with hopeful assessments of emerging grassroots alternatives. Surveying not only the Latin American conditions that led to bankruptcy for countless farmers but also the North's practices, such as the heavy subsidies implemented to protect North American farmers, these essays represent a comprehensive, keenly informed response to a pivotal global crisis.