The Urban Economy And Regional Trade Liberalization

This book explores the role of cities in the trade liberalization process in the global economy and their efforts to enhance the competitiveness of cities. Cities have become the primary actors in the trade liberalization process, both in North America and Europe. It is their efforts to design strategic responses, to create city networks, to influence priorities for public expenditures, and to enhance their own competitiveness that are vital to the realization of the potential for increased efficiency and higher incomes which free-trade promises.

This work examines the impact of trade liberalization on the urban economy through case studies of urban areas along the U.S.-Canadian border, in the European Community, and in Scandinavia. The findings will be of interest to scholars in development economics and international trade and to practitioners and policy-makers involved in urban economic development.

Review: ?Kresl's central thesis is that urban centers play an important, if not determinant role, in the realization of any benefits projected to flow from a regional trade liberalization scheme. In essence this is an area-specific examination of welfare economics applied to trade liberalization. Using the Canada-US trade agreement and the announced policy of the EC to complete economic integration by the end of 1992, the author attempts to demonstrate the critical role that urban centers can play in either frustrating or facilitating the resulting changes in the economic structure of a given nation or set of national economies.

In addition to a careful review of the literature as well as a detailed review of the North American and European schemes and their predicted effects, Kresl marshals information gathered in interviews with urban leaders in both Europe and North America together with a detailed European case study to support the central thesis.

Extensive bibliography; chapter notes. This is a rather fulsome treatment of a highly targeted question that lies in the intersect of trade and welfare economics theory. Advanced undergraduate; graduate.?-Choice