Efficiency Effects of the Accession of Spain and Portugal to the EC

Trade Effects of European Union Enlargement: an ex post model of trade between Spain and Latin America

“…Hine's (1989) forecast of limited trade diversion effects of Spanish accession on non-European suppliers of manufactured products appears to have been borne out. Plummer (1991a) and Sarris (1983) predicted that enlargement would lead to some trade diversion, but did not examine the effects on individual Latin American countries or commodities, so that their results are not directly comparable with the disaggregated findings of this study. The same applies to the article by Pomfret (1986), who emphasised the trade diversion effects of preferential trading arrangements.…”

Agricultural Trade in a North American Free Trade Agreement

“…By reducing the margin of discrimination between members and nonmembers, a successful Uruguay Round should reduce the impact of NAFTA and all other preferential arrangements, including those already in place. For example, the large amount of agricultural trade diversion that has occurred since Greece, Spain and Portugal joined the EEC would be reduced (Plummer, 1991a and1991b;and Hamilton and Winters, 1992). A successful Uruguay Round might also eliminate some domestic policies (price supports, land diversion, input subsidies) that are assumed to remain in place in the present analysis.…”

The Experience of Portugal's Accession to the European Union: What Counties Wanting to Join a Customs Union Should Expect

“…The gradual removal of all existing tariffs between Portugal and the EU over a 10year period had trade creation implications. However, this trade creation was one-sided because, Portuguese exports to the EU were already enjoying preferential treatment, facing minimal tariffs (Plummer, 1991). On the other hand, the removal of trade barriers to EU-based producers provided them with a substantial advantage (Khalili, 1992).…”

“…Even after democracy was restored in 1974, Portugal went through a period of political and economic instability with the succession of a number of weak governments (Plummer, 1991). Only in the 1980s and 1990s the political environment has allowed the Portuguese economy to attain a high rate of growth in order to close the gap that separates it from the rest of Europe (OECD, 2000).…”

“…The integration of Portuguese agriculture into the CAP of the EU was a very difficult task due to the extremely low productivity of the Portuguese farmers (Plummer, 1991). For example, in 1987 average labor productivity of farm labor force was only 16% of the EU average, while crop yields were only 37 to 71% of European averages (OECD, 1992).…”