Integration & Trade Journal: Volume 14 : No. 31 : July-December, 2010

The IDB's Integration & Trade Journal includes articles on the different aspects of integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, on hemispheric integration and, furthermore, on similar processes in other parts of the world. The aim is to address the topics included herein from a remarkably conceptual viewpoint, adding information to the knowledge of the topics, ensuring that they are useful for those responsible for adopting governmental policies in the region as well as for those integration scheme bodies in the fields of integration, cooperation and international trade. This issue contains the following articles: Some Empirical Results from Economic Geography and Their Regional Policy Implications: The European Experience; Trade, Proximity and Growth: The Impact of Economic Integration on Mexico's Regional Disparities; Internal Transport Infrastructure in Argentina and Its Impact on Provincial Exports; and, Freight Logistics in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Agenda to Improve Performance. This issue also contains selections from the Call for Papers: "Physical Integration for the International Insertion and Regional Connectivity of Latin America and the Caribbean," as well as interviews, statistical indicators, book and essay reviews. In a seminal paper, published more than a decade ago, Krugman and Elizondo (1996) argued "When economists discuss such issues as trade policies in developing countries, they generally pay little attention to the effects of such policies on the internal economic geography of those countries." That was certainly true for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) then and, unfortunately, that continues to be true for Latin America and the Caribbean today, with a few exceptions that confirm the rule. Since the region opened up its economy in the late 80s and early 90s, plenty of ink has been spilt and a mass of numbers have been crunched to assess the impact of trade liberalization -be that unilateral, regional or multilateral- on issues such as mark-ups, productivity and income/wage inequalities. Yet, despite the countries¿ poor record in ensuring that the benefits of growth are spread evenly across their regions, research devoted to understand how the new trade regime interacts with the prevailing regional disparities has clearly been scarce. True, unlike the impact of trade on productivity or wage inequalities, the relationship between trade and regional disparities cannot count on a unified theory or a solid body of empi