IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cjrecs/v8y2015i3p403-420..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Editor's choice Regional trade agreements and export competitiveness: the uncertain path of Nicaragua’s apparel exports under CAFTA

Author

Listed:
  • Stacey Frederick
  • Jennifer Bair
  • Gary Gereffi

Abstract

The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has been a mixed blessing for economic development. While exports to the US economy have increased, dependency may hinder economic growth if countries do not diversify or upgrade before temporary provisions expire. This article evaluates the impact of the temporary Tariff Preference Levels (TPLs) granted to Nicaragua under CAFTA and the consequences of TPL expiration. Using trade statistics, country- and firm-level data from Nicaragua’s National Free Zones Commission (CNZF) and data from field research, we estimate Nicaragua’s apparel sector will contract as much as 30–40% after TPLs expire. Our analysis underscores how rules of origin and firm nationality affect where and how companies do business, and in so doing, often constrain sustainable export growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Stacey Frederick & Jennifer Bair & Gary Gereffi, 2015. "Editor's choice Regional trade agreements and export competitiveness: the uncertain path of Nicaragua’s apparel exports under CAFTA," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(3), pages 403-420.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cjrecs:v:8:y:2015:i:3:p:403-420.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cjres/rsv015
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Bair & Gary Gereffi, 2013. "Better Work in Central America: assessing the opportunities for upgrading in Nicaragua’s apparel sector," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series ctg-2013-17, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Pickles & Leonhard Plank & Cornelia Staritz & Amy Glasmeier, 2015. "Trade policy and regionalisms in global clothing production networks," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(3), pages 381-402.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xu Wang & Chris King-Chi Chan & Linchuan Yang, 2022. "Do workers benefit from economic upgrading in the Pearl River Delta, China?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:cjrecs:v:8:y:2015:i:3:p:403-420.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/cjres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.