The employment effect of a regional integration: The case of the Canadian and the US integration since the 80’s, keeping EU-15 as benchmark.

Abstract: In present world economy the advancement in the communication and globalization have made the physical proximity between two countries, a thing of past. In the present era, developed countries are forging trading treaties with rest of the world to be able to sustain a certain economic growth. This paper investigates the effect of one of these treaties on the Canadian employment at industry level, keeping EU- 15 countries as a benchmark. I find that the FTA had a negative impact on Canadian employment, even though affect is negligible, though within industries we do get to see significant swings in employment level over the time. Over all CUSTA did more good than harm to the Canadian Economy, contrary to what was suggested by the critics.