FTAA suspend the law of gravity and give the Americas higher growth and better income distributions ?

1. The export sector is the fundamental source of both wealth and inequality: You are what you export. Exporting manufactures has been essential for high incomes and low levels of inequality. Exporting crops and raw materials comes with low incomes and unequal income distributions. 2. The mix of exports is determined by three fundamentals: Resources, Remoteness, and Climate. Manufacturing likes cool climates, an educated workforce, and locations close to the high-wage marketplaces of Europe and North-America. 3. The volume of exports and the wealth formation that comes from the export sector can be impeded by inward looking, isolationist policies. Governments can affect the export mix only slightly and mostly through policies that alter the effects of the fundamental drivers, for example, by encouraging the formation of institutions that make a country effectively closer to global marketplaces.