M ore than nearly any other phenomenon, globalization has had a profound effect on the Mexican economy. Mexican labor markets have been particularly affected. Globalization integrates labor markets through trade, capital flows, and migration. Recent studies that mainly focus on Mexico's manufacturing sector suggest that North American economic integration (particularly Mexico's integration with...

International Integration, Risk and the Welfare State How does international integration affect the welfare state? Does it call for a leaner or an expanded welfare state? International integration may affect the distortions caused by welfare state activities but also the risks motivating social insurance mechanisms. This paper addresses these potentially counteracting effects in a fully specifi...

Our paper provides a theoretical analysis of the potential trade implications of a currency union focusing on the crucial role of economic dissimilarities among countries. Modeling the adoption of a common currency as the elimination of transaction costs on international trade, we show that a currency union enhances bilateral trade among members while it reduces bilateral trade between members ...

as regional integration agreements (RIAs)—is one of the major international relations developments of recent years. Most industrial and developing countries in the world are members of a regional integration agreement, and many belong to more than one: more than one-third of world trade takes place within such agreements. 1 The structure of regional agreements varies hugely, but all have one th...

International trade integration creates diffuse benefits and concentrated costs. Until recently, economists were sanguine about the limited practical relevance of theoretical implications for workers in developed countries. Evidence from the China Shock has overturned this benign view. China’s rapid rise, while enormously positive for world welfare, has created identifiable losers in trade-impa...

The Indian economy has observed significant trade reforms since the mid 1980s, and the Indian manufacturing sector has rapidly increased its integration with the world economy. In this paper, we ask the question: did the increased trade integration create or destroy jobs in the Indian manufacturing sector? We attempt to answer this question by employing a variety of methodological approaches – ...

A number of theoretical studies have tended to trace the nature of globalisation process’ impacts (mostly characterised by trade opening) on informality, while relevant empirical literature has been not well developed. The paper aims to fill this knowledge gap by shedding further light on the linkages running from globalisation to informality in developing countries. Moreover, in this study, gl...

Although there is evidence that domestic politics matter for the formation of preferential trade agreements, the impact of large-scale changes in political institutions, especially in the direction of democratization, on economic integration has been given surprisingly short shrift in the previous literature. This study takes a first step toward developing such an explanation. It posits that, a...

There is little disagreement among most economists that countries benefit from trade liberalization. Yet, whether unilateral, multilateral (through the World Trade Organization) or through regional integration agreements (RIAs), trade liberalization has been one of the most controversial economic issues of our time. It is the focus of everyone from politicians to union leaders and anti-globaliz...