Global Economic Forum
A Two-Day Seminar for High School Social Studies Teachers
July 5–6, 2006
San Antonio

This forum helped high school educators address key issues that impact the global economy.

Day 1
Speakers considered the region’s influence and role in the international spectrum as well as cross-border activity and its impact on the border economy. Breakout sessions on teaching international issues and ideas for classroom applications were provided.

Day 2
The New York, Chicago, Boston and Dallas Feds participated in a videoconference addressing the role of Europe, China and Latin America in the global economy. The day ended with a roundtable discussion on incorporating the information from the videoconference into the high school classroom.

Agenda

Wednesday, July 5
International Center

8:30 a.m.	Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:55 a.m.	Introductory Remarks Sherry Kiser Director of Economic Education Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
9:00 a.m.	Welcome K. Blake Hastings Executive Director Free Trade Alliance San Antonio
9:10 a.m.	The Port Authority, Trade, San Antonio and South Texas Jorge Canavati Vice President of Business Development San Antonio Port Authority
9:35 a.m.	The City of San Antonio’s Approach to Globalization Elena Villarreal International Trade and Marketing Manager City of San Antonio
10:00 a.m.	Economic Development Strategies in a Global Economy [PPT] K. Blake Hastings
10:25 a.m.	International Trade Center:South-West Texas Border Region [PPT] Douglas Smith Senior International Business Consultant International Trade Center University of Texas–San Antonio
11:00 a.m.	NADB History, Performance and Outlook [PPT] Henry E. Sauvignet Director of Administration North American Development Bank
11:25 a.m.	The World Affairs Council: Helping to Develop an Informed Citizenry Barbara Schneider Executive Director World Affairs Council of San Antonio
11:50 a.m.	Wrap-up K. Blake Hastings
Noon	Lunch
1:30 p.m.	Globalization’s Impact on Cities: The Case of the Texas–Mexico Border [PPT] Keith R. Phillips Senior Economist and Policy Advisor Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas San Antonio Branch
2:15 p.m.	Teaching Comparative Advantage Steve Cobb Economics Department Chair University of North Texas
3:15 p.m.	New Ideas for Teaching Exchange Rates with Transition Economies Steve Cobb
4:00 p.m.	Reception

Thursday, July 6
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, San Antonio Branch Office

8:00 a.m.	Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:30 a.m.	Global Imbalances—With a Focus on the U.S. and China [PPT] (via satellite) Jane Sneddon Little Vice President and Economist Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
9:30 a.m.	Quo Vadis, Latin America?Food for Thought [PPT] Carlos Zarazaga Executive Director, Center for Latin American Economics, and Senior Economist Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
10:45 a.m.	Latin America in Transition Loretta García Williams Director of Education World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth
11:30 a.m.	Lunch
12:30 p.m.	The European Economy: Going for Growth (via satellite) Amy Houpt Medearis Senior Economist Delegation of the European Commission
1:30 p.m.	Taking This Conference to the Classroom Group Participation
2:30 p.m.	Adjourn

About the Speakers

Jorge Canavati
Vice President of Business Development
San Antonio Port Authority
Before assuming his current position, Canavati was president of J. Canavati & Co., a consulting firm representing an international clientele in trade, business development and sales. Canavati has more than 25 years’ experience in North and Latin American foreign trade and is the author of articles on Mexican trade and transportation. He is on the board of various international trade organizations and is the official Texas representative of the National Importers and Exporters Association of Mexico, ANIERM. Canavati serves on the international committee of the Texas Motor Transportation Association and is chair of the logistics committee of Free Trade Alliance San Antonio. Canavati attended Metropolitan University of Mexico City and Our Lady of the Lake University in Houston.

Steve Cobb
Economics Department Chair
University of North Texas
Cobb currently serves as director of the Center for Economic Education and is completing his eleventh year as chair of the Economics Department at UNT. He has been published in numerous journals and coauthored the textbook International Economics, 5th edition. Cobb has been involved in the National Council on Economic Education’s Economics International Training of Trainers program for the past 12 years, helping more than 500 faculty members in the former Soviet Union teach economics from a market perspective. In 2005, the NCEE presented Cobb with the Albert Beekhuis Award for Centers of Excellence in Economic Education. He was president of the National Association of Economic Educators in 1999–2000. Cobb received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

K. Blake Hastings
Executive Director
Free Trade Alliance San Antonio
Hastings is responsible for the staffing and coordination of the Alliance’s strategic plan development and trade development initiatives and serves as a liaison to its institutional members and the community at large. He oversees implementation of the Alliance’s objectives, which include promoting San Antonio as a hub for international commerce. Before becoming executive director in 2001, Hastings served in such capacities as member services director, international trade specialist and vice president. He worked for an export management company in New York overseeing the export of food service equipment to Northeast Asia and for the U.S. Trade and Development Agency in Washington, D.C. Hastings, who studied at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, has a B.A. in international economics and an M.B.A. in international business from George Washington University.

Jane Sneddon Little
Vice President and Economist
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Little, who joined the Boston Fed 40 years ago as a research assistant, was made a vice president in 2001. Her research focuses on international macroeconomic issues. In the past few years, she has written or coauthored papers on the evolution of the international monetary system, asset prices and economic stabilization, and technology diffusion. She recently coauthored the conference paper “U.S. Monetary Policy in an Integrating World: 1960 to 2000.” Little’s public service includes staff work for the Task Force on the Health Care Industry and the Governor’s Council on Economic Growth and Technology. She has also been a lecturer at Simmons College. Little has a B.A. from Wellesley College, where she also earned her M.A.L.D. at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Amy Houpt Medearis
Senior Economist
Delegation of the European Commission
Medearis monitors macroeconomic and economic policy developments in the United States and Europe and helps foster U.S.–European cooperation on economic, financial and employment issues. Before joining the commission, she was vice president and Europe analyst for the consulting firm G7 Group Inc. and vice president of International Advisory Services, a trade consulting group. In 1994–95, Medearis worked at the Ministry of Economics of the German state of Brandenburg and was a Robert Bosch Fellow in the Economic Research Department of Dresdner Bank. Prior to that, she was an editor at the Institute for International Economics. Medearis received a B.A. in comparative area studies and German from Duke University and an M.A. in international economics and European studies from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

Keith R. Phillips
Senior Economist and Policy Advisor
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, San Antonio
Branch
Phillips’ areas of concentration include regional economics and economic forecasting. Since joining the Fed in 1984, he has developed indexes of leading economic indicators for Texas and Mexico, which he uses to analyze business conditions. He is a contributing member of the Western Blue Chip Economic Forecasting Group, where he has been the most accurate Texas forecaster for five of the past eight years. His research and analysis have been covered by CNN, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, USA Today, BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and media throughout Texas. Phillips teaches courses in econometrics and forecasting at Trinity and St. Mary’s universities in San Antonio. He earned bachelor’s degrees in economics and journalism and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Missouri and a Ph.D. in economics from Southern Methodist University.

Henry E. Sauvignet
Director of Administration
North American Development Bank
Through NADBank, Sauvignet seeks ways to enhance the financing, development and operation of environmental infrastructure projects along the U.S.–Mexico border. Before assuming this position, he was director of international affairs for the city of San Antonio and international trade director for the Texas Department of Economic Development. Sauvignet has traveled extensively to promote international economic development. He serves on the advisory boards of St. Mary’s University Business School and the Center for International Business Studies at Texas A&M University and on the boards of San Antonio’s World Affairs Council and the San Antonio–Mexico Foundation for Education. Sauvignet has received national awards for his work to establish San Antonio’s foreign office program and was honored by Mexico’s National Chamber of Commerce for his support of trade between the U.S. and Mexico.

Barbara Schneider
Executive Director
World Affairs Council of San Antonio
Schneider, executive director of San Antonio’s World Affairs Council since 1995, was secretary of the World Affairs Councils of America board in 1998–2002. In the 1980s, she served as director of administration for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington, D.C. Before that, she was office manager and executive secretary to the vice president of Decision Making Information, a marketing firm. Schneider is past president of both the Southwest Foundation Forum and the board of the Bexar County Women’s Center. She is a former board member of the Cancer Center Council and was board chair of the American Red Cross, San Antonio Chapter. Currently, Schneider is an advisor to the board of the Society for the Preservation of Historic Fort Sam Houston and on the board of trustees of Hospice San Antonio.

Douglas Smith
Senior International Business Consultant
International Trade Center
University of Texas at San Antonio
Smith provides international trade consulting for small and medium-size companies in the Austin area. He has more than 20 years’ experience in international trade and marketing consulting for small businesses as well as such major corporations as IBM, Motorola and Johnson Wax; trade associations, including the Business Round Table; and the foreign trade commissions of Thailand, Portugal and Colombia. Smith’s international experience includes numerous projects involving Western Europe, South America, Asia and Africa. He was vice president for consulting services at Global Trade Information Services in Columbia, S.C.; president of Carolina International Marketing Associates; and a senior consultant for Frank Lynn & Associates, a Chicago-based international consulting firm. He has been a contributing editor to Textile Asia Magazine and has published in Atlanta International Magazine, Twin Plant News and Business Horizons. Smith has an M.A. in government and international relations and an M.B.A. in finance and international business from the University of Texas at Austin.

Elena Villarreal
International Trade and Marketing Manager
City of San Antonio
Villarreal oversees and manages the International Affairs Department’s CASA San Antonio program—the city’s three foreign trade offices in Mexico, located in Monterrey, Guadalajara and Mexico City. Before joining the department in San Antonio, Villarreal served as director of CASA San Antonio in Monterrey. In addition, she has held the positions of executive director and CEO of Medical Destination San Antonio, international trade representative for Mobil Petrochemical International and sales manager for Grupo Industrial Monclova. During the first half of her career, Villarreal worked for multinational companies in bilateral trade between the United States and Mexico. She has spent the past seven years promoting the city of San Antonio in Mexico and helping businesses grow internationally. Villarreal holds a B.A. in international studies from Austin College.

Loretta García Williams
Director of Education
World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth
Williams orchestrates student and educator forums and manages several programs in leadership, professional development and internships. She worked for the Plano Independent School District for 35 years, 12 of them in middle and high school classrooms and 23 as coordinator of the Department of Languages Other than English. She has taught Spanish at Southern Methodist University and adult basic education at Grayson Junior College in Denison, Texas. Williams developed and implemented Survival Spanish for Educators and has made numerous presentations locally, nationally and internationally on teaching foreign languages. Among the honors she has received are the Plano ISD Centennial Hero award and the Diversity Leadership Award. Williams holds a B.S. in Spanish from the University of Albuquerque and an M.A. in Spanish from Texas Women’s University.

Carlos Zarazaga
Executive Director, Center for Latin American
Economics, and Senior Economist
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Zarazaga has been an economist at the Central Bank of Argentina and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. He also taught graduate-level courses in the Economics Department at the University of Minnesota and undergraduate courses in the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. His current research interests include economic policy design for developing countries, sovereign debt defaults, structural reforms, and international finance and trade in emerging economies. He has presented his research and policy papers regionally, nationally, and internationally at academic and policymaking forums. Zarazaga’s work has been published in books, Dallas Fed publications and professional refereed journals, including Economic Review, Empresa and Review of Economic Dynamics. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota.