[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cnpexx/v18y2013i5p715-747.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Power Underpinnings, and Some Distributional Consequences, of Trade and Investment Liberalisation in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Jordan Brennan
Abstract
Criticism of trade and investment liberalisation (TAIL) in North America has drawn attention to weak economic performance, wage-profit redistribution, social dumping and fiscal pressure on government programmes as evidence that the TAIL regime has failed to deliver on some of its key promises. This criticism has been unable, however, to establish satisfactory conceptual and empirical connections between the dramatic distributional changes witnessed in the TAIL era and the institutional reorganisation of power that the TAIL regime entrenched. This article will undertake a quantitative assessment of the Canadian political economy to see who the main beneficiaries of the TAIL era have been, contrasting returns to labour and to capital in the pre-TAIL and TAIL eras. Employing tools from the capital as power framework, two pictures are painted: the first picture examines broad changes in the distribution of income and the second examines differential business performance. The evidence from this inquiry suggests that although the official purpose of TAIL was to enhance the prosperity of all Canadians, this trade deal actually represented - both in its intentions and consequences - a political-economic transformation written by dominant capital for dominant capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Jordan Brennan, 2013. "The Power Underpinnings, and Some Distributional Consequences, of Trade and Investment Liberalisation in Canada," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(5), pages 715-747, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:18:y:2013:i:5:p:715-747
    DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2013.736955
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13563467.2013.736955
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13563467.2013.736955?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schneiderman,David, 2008. "Constitutionalizing Economic Globalization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521692038, September.
    2. Nitzan, Jonathan & Bichler, Shimshon, 2009. "Capital as Power. A Study of Order and Creorder," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157973.
    3. van Harten, Gus, 2007. "Investment Treaty Arbitration and Public Law," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199217892.
    4. Mr. Chris Papageorgiou & Mr. Subir Lall & Ms. Florence Jaumotte, 2008. "Rising Income Inequality: Technology, or Trade and Financial Globalization?," IMF Working Papers 2008/185, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Blair Fix, 2019. "Energy, hierarchy and the origin of inequality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-32, April.
    2. McMahon, James, 2018. "Is Hollywood a Risky Business? A Political Economic Analysis of Risk and Creativity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Online Fi, pages 1-24.
    3. Baines, Joseph, 2015. "Price and Income Dynamics in the Agri-Food System: A Disaggregate Perspective," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157992, September.
    4. Baines, Joseph & Hager, Sandy Brian, 2019. "Financial Crisis, Inequality, and Capitalist Diversity: A Critique of the Capital as Power Model of the Stock Market," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Online Fi.
    5. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2013. "Public Debt, Ownership and Power: The Political Economy of Distribution and Redistribution," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157991, September.
    6. Fix, Blair, 2019. "Energy, Hierarchy and the Origin of Inequality," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(4, April), pages 1-32.
    7. Baines, Joseph, 2014. "Wal-Mart's Power Trajectory: A Contribution to the Political Economy of the Firm," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 1(1), pages 79-109.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brennan, Jordan, 2013. "The Power Underpinnings, and Some Distributional Consequences, of Trade and Investment Liberalisation in Canada (Preprint)," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(5), pages 715-747.
    2. Lauge N. Skovgaard Poulsen & Emma Aisbett, 2011. "When the Claim Hits: Bilateral Investment Treaties and Bounded Rational Learning," Crawford School Research Papers 1105, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    3. Diaby-Pentzlin, Friederike, 2020. "Deficiencies of international investment law: What chances for "critical lawyers" to civilize global value chains and/or to transform the status quo of the economic world order?," Wismar Discussion Papers 04/2020, Hochschule Wismar, Wismar Business School.
    4. Brennan, Jordan, 2012. "NAFTA, Investiture and Redistribution. The Power Underpinnings of Trade and Investment Liberalization in Canada," EconStor Preprints 157833, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    5. Joel Rabinovich & Niall Reddy, 2024. "Corporate Financialization: A Conceptual Clarification and Critical Review of the Literature," Working Papers PKWP2402, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    6. Robert Basedow, 2021. "The EU's International Investment Policy ten years on: the Policy‐Making Implications of Unintended Competence Transfers," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 643-660, May.
    7. Marta de la Cuesta-González & Cristina Ruza & José M. Rodríguez-Fernández, 2020. "Rethinking the Income Inequality and Financial Development Nexus. A Study of Nine OECD Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-18, July.
    8. Raul Ramos & Vicente Royuela, 2014. "“Income inequality in Europe. Analysis of recent trends at the regional level”," IREA Working Papers 201425, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Oct 2014.
    9. Ju, Jiandong & Shi, Kang & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2021. "Trade reforms and current account imbalances," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    10. Ms. Evridiki Tsounta & Anayochukwu Osueke, 2014. "What is Behind Latin America’s Declining Income Inequality?," IMF Working Papers 2014/124, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Fix, Blair, 2018. "The aggregation problem: Implications for ecological economics," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2018/03, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    12. Baines, Joseph & Hager, Sandy Brian, 2021. "Commodity Traders in a Storm: Financialization, Corporate Power and Ecological Crisis," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar.
    13. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2015. "Public Debt as Corporate Power: Mapping the New Aristocracy of Finance," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2015/01, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    14. Sheila C. Dow, 2014. "The role of belief in the debate over austerity policies," Working Papers PKWP1409, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    15. Naude, Wim & Nagler, Paula, 2015. "Industrialisation, Innovation, Inclusion," MERIT Working Papers 2015-043, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    16. Donatella Baiardi & Claudio Morana, 2015. "Financial deepening and income distribution inequality in the euro area," CeRP Working Papers 153, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy).
    17. Asteriou, Dimitrios & Dimelis, Sophia & Moudatsou, Argiro, 2014. "Globalization and income inequality: A panel data econometric approach for the EU27 countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 592-599.
    18. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2021. "The Capitalist Degree of Immortality," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2021/06, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    19. Rao, Weijia, 2021. "Are arbitrators biased in ICSID arbitration? A dynamic perspective," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Axel Berger & Wan‐Hsin Liu, 2021. "Can the G20 serve as a launchpad for a multilateral investment agreement?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(8), pages 2284-2302, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:18:y:2013:i:5:p:715-747. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cnpe20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.