What have the FTA and the NAFTA done to the Canadian labor market?

A central concern with respect to globalization is its effects on institutions. Institutions are thought to provide protections against the casual damage inflicted by market processes and, in various ways, to contribute toward aggregate economic efficiency. The effects of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement on the Canadian labor market and its institutions provide a useful case study of the effects of globalization because Canadian trade is so heavily concentrated with the United States. In this paper I show that, while the agreements imposed considerable costs on employees in some manufacturing industries, overall, Canadian institutions have not been substantially changed by the agreements. Where those institutions have changed, other factors have been much more important.