NAFTA and its Impact on Mexico

The principal objective of a free trade agreement between two or more countries is to increase efficiency. As the well-known Heckscher-Ohlin (1933) theorem suggests, by going from autarky to free trade, the countries involved will tend to specialize in the production of those goods and services that each country has a comparative advantage in, and this will lead to increased efficiency and welfare. This paper analyzes how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada and Mexico has created efficiency and welfare in Mexico, as it has been argued that NAFTA has been both advantageous as well as disadvantageous for Mexico. In sum, this paper investigates which particular sectors of Mexico’s economy benefitted from and were injured by NAFTA, while taking into account macroeconomic indicators such as GDP growth, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows, volume of trade, wage inequalities and education, as most studies have found the net economic effects of NAFTA on Mexico to be ambiguous

Derived sections of Grothendieck fibrations and the problems of homotopical algebra

The description of algebraic structure of n-fold loop spaces can be done either using the formalism of topological operads, or using variations of Segal's $\Gamma$-spaces. The formalism of topological operads generalises well to different categories yielding such notions as $\mathbb E_n$-algebras in chain complexes, while the $\Gamma$-space approach faces difficulties. In this paper we discuss how, by attempting to extend the Segal approach to arbitrary categoires, one arrives to the problem of understanding "weak" sections of a homotopical Grothendieck fibration. We propose a model for such sections, called derived sections, and study the behaviour of homotopical categories of derived sections under the base change functors. The technology developed for the base-change situation is then applied to a specific class of "resolution" base functors, which are inspired by cellular decompositions of classifying spaces. For resolutions, we prove that the inverse image functor on derived sections is homotopically full and faithful.Comment: 50 pages, improved in line with referee remark

The limits of French intervention in Africa: a study in applied neo-colonialism

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 54INTRODUCTION: The scope of this paper is both wider and narrower than might be suggested by its title. It does not propose to offer a full analysis of French neocolonialism, but neither will it be limited to a mere inventory of overt French military actions of the type recently performed in Chad, Shaba or the Central African Republic. Part of the ambiguity that the title of the paper may occasion lies in the use of the term "intervention," which will be used to designate a wide-ranging sequence of policy actions leading, whether deliberately or not, to the crystallization of France's current posture in Africa.* In its broadest sense, "intervention" can, and probably should, include every form of concerted action (whether direct or indirect, overt or covert) by one international actor on another for the purpose of altering, in a manner favorable to the intervenor, the normal processes of operation in the targeted society. In this perspective, it would be legitimate to claim that intervention, or intrusion, by France or by other external powers in the affairs of Africa begins almost from the moment when they first established contact with African societies. The setting up of the slave trade itself was not intrinsically perceived as interventionist, inasmuch as slaves were at that time regarded by both sides as a legitimate trade commodity, but the supply of firearms to native intermediaries who were expected to use their newlyacquired technological superiority to pillage the hinterland in the forcible procurement of slaves, or the exploitation of rivalries between indigenous trading states were all forms of "intervention." Similarly, the imposition of direct colonial rule and the attendant (and forcible) introduction of new modes of production in African societies were clearly interventionist, as was the later development of a colonial apparatus, with its mobilizational and surplus-extracting effects.[TRUNCATED

Carbon dynamics in apple orchards in New Zealand and their integration into life cycle assessment : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in Soil Sciences and Life Cycle Management

Soil carbon sequestration can help mitigate climate change and soil carbon contributes to many of the ecosystem services provided by the soil; thus soil carbon contributes to the sustainability of food production systems. However, changes in soil carbon are difficult and costly to measure due to two constraining characteristics: the spatial variability of the stocks as well as the typically small changes in carbon stocks over time. Consequently, environmental assessment tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and carbon footprinting (CF) generally exclude the changes in soil carbon stocks from their analyses. Yet global supermarket chains use the results from these tools to inform consumers about greener products. In New Zealand (NZ), production of horticultural products such as apples is very focussed on export markets. Therefore, if it can be demonstrated that the production of New Zealand apples maintains or increases the carbon stock of the orchard soil and above-ground biomass, this could lead to a reduced net CF and might enhance access to prime retailers’ shelves in major export markets. The main aims of this research were (a) to develop a practical method for measuring a statistically significant and powerful change in the soil-carbon stock of an apple orchard block in New Zealand, and (b) to assess a method to estimate the standing woody biomass carbon stock in apple orchards, in order to provide reliable data for the CF of NZ apples. Since there are no data available, this research sought to quantify the changes in soil-carbon stocks in apple orchards by means of a chrono-sequence. A review of LCA and CF case studies accounting for changes in soil-carbon identified the need to focus on collecting deep, site specific, geo-localised and time-dependent soil-carbon data, as well as communicating its variability and statistical uncertainty for interpretation and transparency of LCA and CF results. Therefore, in a first step to develop a protocol for quantifying the carbon stocks in the soil, a four-year-old apple orchard block was intensively sampled to one meter depth to measure the soil-carbon stock and the spatial patterns. It was found that the soil-carbon stock was influenced by tree planting pattern, and the minimum sampling requirements were determined to detect, from sampling every 20 years, a change of the mean (175.1± 10.8 t C/ha) of 10 % due to the spatial and temporal characteristics of soil carbon. This required sampling nine sites in a systematic grid in the orchard block, with four pooled samples per site evenly distributed between and outside the wheel tracks, at a total cost of NZ$1,590 per sampling campaign. This cost of monitoring seems affordable as it is equivalent to just 0.5premiums could compensate for it, using the carbon market seems unrealistic at present because the price of carbon would need to reach at least NZ$182/tonne. To inform development of a protocol for quantifying the carbon stocks in the woody biomass in a commercial apple orchard block, the relationship between the trunk cross-sectional area (TCA) and the woody dry mass (DM) of the trees was assessed using 10 trees that were destructively harvested. It was found that using this relationship together with a high number of TCAs measured in situ in the orchard block facilitated the rapid and cost effective estimation of the woody biomass carbon stocks at the orchard block scale. At the end of the orchard life, the carbon has been stored out of the atmosphere for the lifetime of the trees and this contributes to reduced climate change. Furthermore, at the end of life the trees may be burned for convenience, chopped for firewood or transformed into biochar and applied to soils. It was found that the biochar scenario provided the largest reduction, and that this benefit was equivalent to 0.7% of the carbon footprint of apples exported to Europe. The choice of a time horizon for the assessment was found to be critical, with comparative results varying up to three fold between the 20 year and the 100 year time horizons. Regarding changes in soil carbon stocks over time, the four-year-old orchard block was part of a 12 year-old chronosequence, also including a one-year, a six-year and a twelve-year old block. The same sampling protocol was carried out in these three other blocks. It was found that all orchard blocks had relatively high soil-carbon stocks. Moreover, there was no significant difference in soil-carbon stocks at the 5% level between the one-year-old, the six-year-old and the twelve-year-old blocks of the chronosequence. Based on the soil-carbon stocks of these three blocks, current management practices seem to be maintaining these carbon stocks over time. Therefore, unless management practices are modified, monitoring may not be required. However, this maintenance of relatively high soil-carbon stocks in orchard systems is beneficial for climate change and the ecosystem services provided by the soil. It should therefore be treated as such in LCA and CF studies although a method is yet to be developed. In addition, despite a high similarity with the other blocks, the four-year-old block showed a higher, significantly different soil-carbon stock, and the levels of variability in soil-carbon stocks were found to be different between all the blocks. This demonstrates the high local specificity of soil-carbon stocks. The six year-old block displayed a coefficient of variation (14%) larger than the other blocks, and so an analysis of sampling requirements was conducted for this block. A change of 10% of the mean could, in theory, be observed by collecting a total of 78 samples, bulked two by two, for carbon content, and using 39 bulk density profiles, all to one meter depth. The associated cost of monitoring is NZ$ 9,420 and is equivalent to 1% of the value of export apples at ship-side in New Zealand. Monitoring soil-carbon stocks would seem therefore affordable, even in the more variable orchard block. Overall, this research has made four main contributions to the science. Firstly, a robust, practical and adaptable protocol for monitoring soil-carbon stocks in apple orchards has been developed. Secondly, a rapid and cost effective method to estimate the carbon stock in standing woody biomass has been verified for use in commercial apple orchard blocks; accounting for this biomass carbon stock may lead to a net reduction of up to 4.6% of the New Zealand based (cradle to NZ port) CF of apples exported to Europe; Thirdly, a chrono-sequence of orchard blocks has suggested that current management practices in apple orchards appear to achieve the maintenance of high soil-carbon stocks over time, and it is suggested that this maintenance should be recognised as beneficial in CF and LCA studies. Finally, soil carbon stocks have been found to be spatially variable within and between similar orchard blocks; therefore LCA and CF studies should use site specific data and communicate the uncertainty of their soil-carbon stock estimates

Strong and weak order in averaging for SPDEs

We show an averaging result for a system of stochastic evolution equations of parabolic type with slow and fast time scales. We derive explicit bounds for the approximation error with respect to the small parameter defining the fast time scale. We prove that the slow component of the solution of the system converges towards the solution of the averaged equation with an order of convergence is 1/2 in a strong sense - approximation of trajectories - and 1 in a weak sense - approximation of laws. These orders turn out to be the same as for the SDE case