Reciprocity in the FTAA: The Roles of Market Access, Institutions and Negotiating Capacity

Abstract

Latin America will support the FTAA if it sees this project as a way of creating the conditions for improved growth performance and declining poverty. In searching for these objectives with effectiveness, this paper calls attention to some of the conditions that are necessary in order for individual countries to internalize benefits from the FTAA. I focus attention on the negotiations between Latin America and the United States because according to existing knowledge on the determinants of growth and convergence, it is the outcome of this exchange of concessions that holds the promise of the most significant gains for Latin America. This paper argues that such a convergence is more likely to take place if: (1) the outcome of these negotiations is characterized by a reciprocal and a significant exchange of market access concessions and, (2) Latin American countries strengthen some of their fundamental economic policies and institutions.FTAA, Reciprocity, Intellectual Property