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Framing the Future: Tomorrow’s
Border Economy
A Conference Sponsored
by San Antonio and El Paso Branches
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
in cooperation with
University of Texas at Brownsville
December 3, 2004
Marriott Hotel
El Paso, Texas
In the 1990s, the Texas border
grew quickly in both population and jobs. However, border
unemployment rates remain among the nation’s highest,
and little progress has been made in closing the income
gap between the border and the rest of the United States.
Today, border security concerns and a surging tide of
global competition are writing a new chapter in border
history, one that may no longer promise the rapid growth
of the recent past.
Where does the border go from
here in the coming decade? How can public policy shape
this future—through trade, education or infrastructure—to
enhance the region’s economic future and make
the region a better place to live? Experts at this one-day
conference will focus on today’s most critical
border issues, with special emphasis on extrapolating
current events along the border into economic consequences
for the rest of this decade and beyond.
Agenda
Speakers
Grant Aldonas
Undersecretary for International Trade Administration
U.S. Department of Commerce
Since assuming responsibility
for ITA in 2001, Aldonas’ priorities have centered
on expanding export opportunities for American business
and enforcing trade agreements and U.S. trade law to
deter unfair trade practices. Before joining the Commerce
Department, Aldonas was chief international trade counsel
to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He
was a partner with the Washington, D.C. law firm of
Miller & Chevalier, where his practice focused on
international trade, investment, tax and litigation.
He served concurrently as counsel to the Bipartisan
Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform and as an adviser
to the Commission on U.S.–Pacific Trade and Investment.
He also chaired the American Bar Association’s
Task Force on Multilateral Investment Agreements and
served separately as vice chair of ABA committees on
trade and foreign investment. Aldonas served previously
in government with the State Department and the Office
of the U.S. Trade Representative, where he was director
of South American and Caribbean affairs. He also teaches
courses on the resolution of international trade disputes
at the Georgetown University Law Center. He has a bachelor’s
degree in international relations and a law degree from
the University of Minnesota.
Jorge Bustamante
Eugene Conley Professor of Sociology
University of Notre Dame
With more than 200 journal
publications in the United States, Europe and Latin
America, Bustamante has been hailed as a leading expert
in the field of international migration. He writes a
weekly editorial column for Mílenio Diario
of Mexico City and Frontera of Tijuana. He
has been a faculty member at the University of Texas
at Austin and El Colegio de México and a visiting
professor at the University of California at Riverside,
National University of Mexico and Institute of Political
Sciences of Paris. He has been at Notre Dame since 1986.
Bustamante founded El Colegio de la Frontera Norte,
the Mexican institute for the study of border issues
located in Tijuana. In 1994, he accepted appointments
to the Joint Public Advisory Committee and Border Environmental
Cooperation Commission, both created by the Mexican,
U.S. and Canadian governments as a result of NAFTA.
In 1997, Bustamante was appointed to a new five-member
United Nations committee on international migrations
and human rights and served two terms as the committee’s
president. For his research, Bustamante was awarded
the Premio Nacional de Ciencias, the highest award granted
to scientists by the Mexican government, and the National
Award on Demography. Bustamante received a master’s
degree and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame.
John H. Christman
Director, Maquiladora Industry Services
Global Insight, Inc.
In his position at Global
Insight, Christman focuses on Mexico’s macroeconomy,
the maquiladora industry, political risk analysis, direct
foreign investment and industrial site location in Mexico.
He has been editor and chief analyst of such specialized
publications as Expansion Magazine, Business Mexico,
Investment in Mexico and the Free Trade Agreement, Direct
Foreign Investment in Mexico and The Maquiladora
Industry Annual Review. Christman is a former director
of economic and investment information at the American
Chamber of Commerce of Mexico, where he also served
on the board of directors. He is a graduate of Northwestern
University.
Serge Coulombe
Professor of Economics
University of Ottawa
Coulombe joined the economics
faculty at the University of Ottawa in 1982. He has
served as visiting professor at Queen’s University
in Kingston, Ontario, and as a special research advisor
in the Economic Studies group of the Canadian Federal
Finance Department. Since 1993, Coulombe’s research
has focused mainly on Canadian regional growth and disparities
using empirical analyses of time-series and cross-section
data. He has also worked in the areas of macroeconomics,
monetary theory and measurement of multifactor productivity
and has carried out research for Industry Canada, Statistics
Canada, the Bank of Canada, Human Resources Development
Canada and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development. His current research is directed at
the relationship between human capital accumulation,
international trade, intranational trade, the industrial
structure and economic growth. His work was featured
in a recent issue of The Economist. Coulombe
earned a Ph.D. in monetary economics from Laval University
in Quebec City.
Alejandro Díaz-Bautista
Professor of Economics
Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Díaz-Bautista is coordinator
of the master’s program in applied economics and
the working paper series at the Colegio de la Frontera
Norte. He is also a researcher in the Department of
Economic Studies. He has published three books: The
Determinants of Economic Growth: Convergence, Trade
and Institutions; Problemas Estructurales de la Economía
Mexicana; and Crecimiento con Convergencia
o Divergencia en las Regiones de México.
His new book is titled Experiencias Internacionales
en la Desregulación Eléctrica y el Sector
Eléctrico en México. His works have
been published in Frontera Norte, Mexican Journal
of Economics and Finance and Momento Economico.
Díaz-Bautista received a bachelor’s degree
in economics from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo
de México and a master’s and Ph.D. in economics
from the University of California at Irvine.
Kristin J. Forbes
Member
President’s Council of Economic Advisers
Forbes was confirmed by the
Senate as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers
in the fall of 2003, making her the youngest person
to hold this position. She is on leave from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management,
where she is the Mitsubishi Career Development Chair
and associate professor of international management.
Her academic research addresses policy-related questions
in international finance and development economics.
Forbes has written extensively on financial contagion,
as well as the relationship between income inequality
and economic growth. She received the Milken Award for
distinguished economic research in 2000 and was named
one of the “Global Leaders for Tomorrow”
as part of the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2003.
During 2001–02 she worked at the Treasury Department
as deputy assistant secretary of quantitative policy
analysis, Latin American and Caribbean nations. She
is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau
of Economic Research and a term member of the Council
on Foreign Relations. Before joining MIT, Forbes worked
at the World Bank and Morgan Stanley. Forbes received
a bachelor’s degree from Williams College and
a Ph.D. from MIT.
James B. Gerber
Professor of Economics
San Diego State University
Gerber is an economics professor
and director of the Center for Latin American Studies
at San Diego State University, where he has taught since
1985. He has been a visiting professor in Mexico and
Canada and has developed Spanish and Mixtec language
programs for U.S. students in Baja California Sur and
Oaxaca, Mexico. From 1999 through 2002, he was economic
research fellow at San Diego Dialogue, a binational
civic organization, where he wrote a monthly column
on the cross-border economy of Tijuana–San Diego
and California– Baja California. He is the author
of International Economics, now in its third
edition, and co-author of North American Economic
Integration: Theory and Practice. He is currently
working on a book on the economics of the U.S.–Mexico
border. Gerber holds two B.A. degrees from California
State University at Chico and a Ph.D. from the University
of California, Davis.
James R. Giermanski
Chairman, Department of International Business
Belmont Abbey College
Giermanski is professor and
chairman of the international business department at
Belmont Abbey College and the National Association of
Small Business International Trade Educators’
2004 International Trade Educator of the Year. A former
Regents Professor at Texas A&M International University,
he previously served as director of transportation and
logistics studies for the university’s Center
for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade. Giermanski
was cochairman of the Texas Transportation Committee
of the task force to prepare for NAFTA. He has testified
on NAFTA, transportation and other international business
issues on the national and state levels, and he is a
reviewer for the Transportation Research Board of the
National Research Council. He has published extensively
on transportation and trade issues and for five years
wrote the “International Insight” column
in Logistics Management. In addition to his
scholarly writing, he has been published in the
Journal of Commerce, El Financiero, Traffic World, Strategic
Finance, Transport Topics and Tax Notes International.
Giermanski received a bachelor’s degree from Belmont
Abbey College, a master of education from the University
of North Carolina– Charlotte, a master of international
business from Florida International University and a
doctorate from the University of Miami.
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
in those regions. 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 News Hour with Jim Lehrer,
USA Today, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, The
New York Times and other media throughout Texas.
Phillips teaches courses in econometrics and forecasting
at Trinity and St. Mary’s universities. 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.
Javier Sánchez-Reaza
Economist
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Sánchez-Reaza is a
professor at Mexico City-based Centro de Investigación
y Docencia Económicas, where he has been working
on issues such as trade, regional growth and urban competitiveness.
He has professional experience in technological and
fiscal policy at Mexico’s central government level
and industrial development experience at the state level.
He has been a senior policy fellow at the University
of Texas at El Paso and visiting professor at the University
of Surrey Roehampton, UK. He holds a master’s
degree in business economics from Anahuac University
and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning
and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.
Howard J. Shatz
Research Fellow
Public Policy Institute of California
Shatz’s work at the
Public Policy Institute of California focuses on California’s
interactions with the global economy. His research interests
include foreign direct investment, international trade
and international economic development. He has worked
as a consultant to the World Bank and has held research
fellowships at the Brookings Institution and the Federal
Reserve Board. Shatz is the author of the PPIC reports
Business Without Borders? The Globalization of the
California Economy and co-author of The Emerging
Integration of the California–Mexico Economies.
He has written numerous journal articles and book chapters
on international trade and investment. He has also testified
about California’s foreign trade offices, government
assistance for international business development, and
California–Mexico economic relations and has worked
on advisory projects for countries in Latin America,
Africa and South Asia. He holds a Ph.D. in public policy
from Harvard University.
Manuel Suárez-Mier
Chief Economist, Latin America
Bank of America
Manuel Suárez-Mier
is the chief Latin American economist at Bank of America,
based in Washington, D.C. An economist from the University
of Chicago, he worked for more than 25 years in Mexico’s
financial system, including the central bank and the
ministry of Finance, and as a diplomat in the U.S. capital
when NAFTA was negotiated. He has taught economics for
three decades at the Technological Institute of Mexico
and at the business schools of Georgetown University
and the University of New Mexico. He has written and
lectured on trade and financial issues in several countries.
Garrick Taylor
Director of Policy Development
Border Trade Alliance
Taylor handles public policy
development issues for the nonprofit Border Trade Alliance,
now in its 18th year of advocating on behalf of the
border trade community. He monitors issues relating
to ports of entry, transportation, agriculture and economic
development and the federal legislation that affects
those issues. During his five years with BTA, he has
worked on legislation dealing with issues as varied
as US-VISIT, NAFTA trucking rules and Food and Drug
Administration bioterrorism regulation. Before joining
BTA, he was a staff member for former Arizona Congressman
Matt Salmon in Washington, D.C. Taylor holds a bachelor’s
degree in political science from Arizona State University.
P. T. Wright, Jr.
Executive Director
Customs and Border Protection
US-VISIT
Wright has worked for U.S.
Customs and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
since 1973. He was selected as a member of the Senior
Executive Service in 2001 and is currently executive
director of CBP, US-VISIT. Wright has held key management
positions in Washington, D.C., Dallas/Fort Worth, El
Paso and Nogales, Ariz. He was instrumental in development
of Customs policies on cargo examination and processing,
drug interdiction and traveler processing, and he directed
the development of the service’s popular Customs
K-9 Trading Card program. He has participated in senior
federal management development programs, including the
Federal Executive Institute and the Customs Leadership
Institute developed by Columbia University’s graduate
school of business. He was named Southwest Region Middle
Manager of the Year and received the National Narcotics
Officers’ Association Customs Award and the European
Commission–Sanctions Ambassador’s Peace
Recognition Award. Wright holds a bachelor’s degree
in political science from Texas State University.
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