Thursday, January 22, 2009

Regional Integration in Central America

Central America has been very active in promoting preferential trade agreements in the last few years, including CAFTA with the United States and the Association Agreement currently negotiated with the EU. In a recently published policy paper, Fernando Rueda and I notice some of the negative features of these agreements and insist on the opportunity that the EU has to promote a really development-friendly association. It should include structural funds and more policy freedom and flexibility.

In any case, this type of agreements can be one of the casualities of the current crisis... something that would not be bad news according to recent work on the subject (see the book coedited with Ken Shadlen).

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