Cooperation and Competition in a Common Market

This book analyses the economic implications of the most important regional integration agreement in Latin America, the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR). Accordingly empirical evidence and theoretical arguments on the costs and benefits of MERCOSUR are provided and the effects of the elimination of custom barriers to intra-regional trade on trade patterns, product differentiation and cost efficiency are quantified. Other issues considered are the obstacles to policy coordination, in particular national divergences in income levels and growth rates. As an up-to-date and comprehensive study of trade flows and economic conditions within the MERCOSUR this book will be an essential reading for all those who wish to get behind the immediate arguments about the future of integration in South America and the prospects of further economic and monetary cooperation in that region.