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.