Request re: SAPs

[Chirag Mehta <cmehta@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

To: Progressive Economists List.
From: Chirag Mehta, Trade Research Consortium
Re: Trade Research Consortium request
January 10, 1993

We have just received an urgent request from our friend and staff
member of the Mongolian Ministry for Trade and Industry whom we
had the pleasure of training last summer on trade related issues.

She asks: "What kinds of decisions and procedures are there for
regulating and protecting domestic industries regarding raw
materials? When we want to stop the export of wool, cashmere and
hides, we have been told that the International Monetary Fund
requires we do not do anything against export. Because of this, in my
opinion, our country is losing a lot of resources which can produce
large amounts of manufactured goods for export, which can carry our
economy more usefully in the future than the loans and aids from
international organizations and donor countries."

"Mongolia's wool and cashmere processing industries are facing many
difficulties regarding raw materials, financing and exporting. Most of
these industries, which had been established in a centrally planned
period in 1970-1980s are defunct because of a lack of raw materials.
All the raw materials are going abroad to China where the terms of
trade are more favorable for processed wool, hides and cashmere."

Studies or case examples of national strategies that have successfully
protected raw materials from undisciplined export and
simultaneously developed processing industries would be most
useful for her and other countries in similar positions. She also wants
to learn more about other nations facing similar problems with the
IMF.

Please send studies electronically to: cmehta@xxxxxxxxxxx; or to Trade
Research Consortium, attn. Chirag Mehta, P.O. Box 80066,
Minneapolis, MN 55408. If you have any questions, please call me at
(612) 379-5980.

I hope to hear from all of you soon.

Chirag Mehta

P.S. Enclosed is the latest Consortium update. Please note the Consortium's
on-going research projects and current research questions.



Trade Research Consortium
Progress Report
November 1993


The Trade Research Consortium exists to create an efficient
mechanism to respond to inquiries from organizations affected by
trade agreements and international economic integration. The three
initial partners in the Consortium -- the Institute for Agriculture and
Trade Policy, the Fair Trade Campaign and Public Citizen -- are now
expanding membership to include the University of Illinois at
Chicago Center for Urban Economic Development.

The Consortium receives research requests from grassroots groups
throughout the world. After searching our in-house library for
relevant materials, inquiries are distributed to more than 1000
academics through several electronic mail conferences. The
Consortium also sends specific requests tailored to the expertise of
nearly 400 researchers and academics with whom it has developed a
closer working relationship. When needed, the Consortium may
contract with outside researchers to complete specific studies of
particular import. Studies may be conducted in-house as well. Notice
of their completion and availability are delivered to the inquiring
organizations and other potentially interested groups, other
academics, the media, and so on. When appropriate, the Consortium
issues a press release to gain wider audiences.

In recent months, the Consortium has devoted in-house research
capacity to evaluate the final text of the NAFTA. Major in-house
studies published on the impacts of NAFTA include:
- Dawkins, Kristin, "NAFTA's Dispute Settlement Provisions: An
Analysis;"
- Dawkins, Kristin, "Truck Scales and Economies of Scale: Weighing
NAFTA and the Politics of Transportation;"
- Holm, Hannah, "Women, NAFTA and Beyond: Constructive
Cooperation or Destructive Competition?"
- Lehman, Karen, and Ritchie, Mark, "U.S. Citizens' Analysis of the
North American Free Trade Agreement: Chapter on Agriculture;"
- Reimer, Connie, "The North American Free Trade Agreement:
Impacts on Indigenous Peoples;" and
- Suppan, Steve, "NAFTA, Bovine TB, and U.S. Importation of Mexican
Feeder Cattle."

Recently completed contracted research includes:
- Ranney, David, "Transnational Investment and Job Loss in Chicago:
Impacts on Women, African-Americans and Latinos;" and
- Ranney, David, "Transnational Investment and Job Loss: The Case of
Chicago."

Consortium academics have responded to inquiries this quarter with
the following studies:
- Calvert, John and Kuehn, Larry, "Pandora's Box: Corporate Power,
Free Trade and Canadian Education;"
- DeMartino, George,  and Cullenberg, Stephen, "Taking 'X' Out of
Competition: An Internationalist Critique of Competitiveness-
Enhancing Strategies;"
- Dicken, Peter, "Global Shift: The Internalization of Economic
Activity;"
- Gerster, R., "Accountability of Executive Directors in the Bretton
Woods Institutions;"
- Greenpeace, "Privatization and Foreign Investment: Protecting the
Environment Through Contractual Clauses;"
- Moy, Carl, "Patent Harmonization, Protectionism, and Legislation;"
- Mullin, John, "Emerging Equity Markets in the Global Economy: The
Case of Developing Countries;"




- Perelman, Michael, "The Pathology of the U.S. Economy: The Costs of
a Low-Wage System;"
- Pantojas-Garcia, E., "Free Trade and U.S.-Caribbean Basin Relations:
The Specter of the North American Free Trade Agreement;"
- Robinson, Ian, "North American Trade As If Democracy Mattered:
What's Wrong With NAFTA and What Are the Alternatives?;" and
- Thu, Kendall, "Relationships of Agricultural and Economic Policy to
the Health of Farm Families, Livestock, and the Environment."

The Consortium's on-going research topics include:
- an assessment of full cost accounting and its relationship to
sustainable agriculture;
- the relationship between NAFTA and other international treaties;
- the relationship between industrialization and development;
- the job creation impacts of transnational corporations (TNCs)
relative to other enterprises within and among nations;
- the impact of IMF, World Bank and GATT global policy on TNC
behavior and investment;
- the implications of "cross-retaliation" in the Multilateral Trade
Organization proposed by the GATT;
- a survey of pharmaceutical companies who market essential drugs
in developing countries and how the current round of the GATT may
impact the prices and distribution of these drugs;
- the effect of U.S. prices for crops on world price levels and
sustainable agriculture in developing nations;
- the role of TNCs in establishing monoculture in agriculture, forests,
and diets;
- alternative mechanisms for international dispute resolution such as
judicial and negotiated models; and
- the impacts of privatization on farmers in South America.

The Consortium has received new requests for research including:
- the economic impacts of hazardous waste sites on host
communities;
- the trade and prices of herbs, such as medicinal plants;
- the history of the soya bean, who owns and controls it, which EC
countries and U.S. states grow it, where and why it is subsidized, why
it has become so important and if there are cartels of soya bean
growers, processors, or shippers;
- designs for structures enabling multilateralism and democracy in
transnational institutions; and
- the percentage of energy input costs to the full costs of agricultural
production.

For more information or to make a research request, contact Kristin
Dawkins or Chirag Mehta at:
Trade Research Consortium
P.O. Box 80066
Minneapolis, MN 55408
Tel: (612) 379-5980
Fax: (612) 379-5982
E-Mail: cmehta@xxxxxxxxxxx