Labour market adjustment to third-party competition: Evidence from Mexico

China's exports reduce wages in importing countries, but few studies have looked at competition in third-party markets. We examine labour market outcomes in Mexico's apparel and textile sectors associated with US apparel and textile imports from China. Using data on US imports in conjunction with quarterly Mexican labour force surveys, we show that US imports from China are associated with a reduction of employment in Mexico's apparel and textile sectors. These effects are the most pronounced for the least educated. Wages were not impacted on net except for possibly the poorest which would indicate stronger local labour market ties in the left tail of the wage distribution. Finally, the effects of trade-induced demand shocks dissipate after about two quarters indicating low firm-level adjustment costs.     

Political economy of the US–Mexican tomato trade agreement

We develop a political economy model to analyse the US–Mexican tomato trade agreement by treating the minimum import price as a negotiated settlement. We incorporate the special characteristics of the US–Mexican tomato dispute, namely trade among large countries, the role of competing fresh and processed tomato lobbies, quota revenues accruing to Mexican producers, bargaining for a minimum import price rather than a tariff, and the role of the Canadian tomato market. We show the importance of the size of the lobby group's supply, the weight elected officials' place on national welfare, and the elasticities of export supply and import demand in determining the optimal price wedge. For the United States, larger fresh tomato or cherry–grape tomato supply intensifies the degree of protection awarded to US growers, while US processors work to mitigate this effect. From Mexico's perspective, larger Mexican fresh or cherry–grape output induces a push towards free trade due to the agreement's depressing effect on Mexican prices, while Mexican processors and quota revenues exacerbate the price wedge.     

Three books,two movements,one story

These three books take different approaches to analysing the transformative potential of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil. Vergara‐Camus' book also examines the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Carter solicited essays from numerous specialists and sees his book as contributing to existing efforts to overcome inequality. Mészáros emphasizes the influence of power relations on the law, determining that it takes an organized pressure group such as the MST to ensure that authorities implement policies that challenge the status quo. Vergara‐Camus' grassroots approach, which involved periods of living with peasant families, concludes that the MST's strategies for building alternative, autonomous rural communities is more realistic – more universalistic – than that of the Zapatistas, whose military tactics tend to reinforce the group's isolation in the forests of Mexico's southernmost state. The review evaluates these arguments, the authors and their evidence from the perspective of a researcher experienced with the objects studied.     

Informal settlements’ needs and environmental conservation in Mexico City: An unsolved challenge for land-use policy

The aim of this article is to analyze the effectiveness of land-use policy in Mexico City in controlling the expansion of informal human settlements in peri-urban zones of high ecological value. It is argued that Mexico City's land-use policy has been reactive and internally inconsistent, failing to take informal settlements into account, has not offered the poor access to housing with adequate services and greater security in terms of land tenure, and lacks the necessary financial resources and institutional capabilities for providing solutions to these problems. Through a case study of informal settlement management policy in the Tlalpan Delegation,¹ applied in what has been termed SC or “Conservation Land,”² we conclude that local government exhibits an inability to confront the new challenge of urban sustainability, that it resorts to conventional solutions which give rise to contradictory situations where political decision-making prevails over ecological considerations, so land-use policy is permissive and does not halt informal urban expansion in areas of high environmental value.     

Social media-based analysis of cultural ecosystem services and heritage tourism in a coastal region of Mexico

Understanding spatial patterns of visitation and benefits accrued to different types of natural and cultural heritage tourists may have important implications for the sustainable management of their destinations. We investigate cultural services accrued to local, domestic and international visitors to the Usumacinta floodplain, a coastal region with one of the highest biological and cultural diversities in Mexico. We combine analysis of social media photographs and high-resolution land cover mapping to identify different cultural services and their association with specific ecosystem and land cover types. Hotspots for international tourists are spatially restricted to well-known and accessible sites. Locals are 2.2–2.5 times more likely than international visitors to be associated with aesthetic appreciation and birdwatching. Locals upload more photographs of coastal lagoons, mangroves, beach and sea. Results are analyzed in light of land cover changes in the region and provide valuable information to decision makers for improved tourism management and conservation strategies.     

Impact of the 2014 Suspension Agreement on sugar between the United States and Mexico

In December 2014, the U.S. and Mexico agreed to a suspension agreement that set a $22.25/cwt import price floor on U.S. sugar imports from Mexico. A partial equilibrium trade model was developed to estimate the economic impact the agreement would have had if it had been in effect from 2008 to 2014. In years when the price floor would have been binding, on average, U.S. producers would have gained $138 million and Mexican producers would have lost $218 million. However, total Mexican welfare would have actually increased by $11.5 million. Furthermore, the average price floor that would have maximized total Mexican welfare over that period is $22.76/cwt. Also, under certain supply and demand elasticity conditions, the average price floor that would have maximized joint U.S. and Mexican producer welfare over that period is $21.91/cwt. The latter two estimates are both close to the actual price floor agreed to in the 2014 Suspension Agreement.     

The Class Dynamics of Food Sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador

This paper examines the class dynamics of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador. It argues that the nature of contemporary demands for food sovereignty is heavily influenced by the outcomes of peasant movements’ historical and ongoing internal class dynamics. Processes of class differentiation within peasant organizations in both countries have led to the interests of certain classes predominating over or at the expense of others. Despite La Vía Campesina's projection of ‘unity in diversity’, incorporating sometimes conflicting class interests into the movement is particularly challenging. As such, class analysis must be brought back into debates around food sovereignty in order to gauge (and potentially further) the movement's transformative potential.