The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada, and Mexico created a barrier-free production and trade zone in North America. Surrounding the implementation of NAFTA, a great volume of public, political, and academic attention was given to the impact of the agreement on the aging U.S. textile industry with high labor costs. The major NAFTA provisions, the elimination of tariffs and quotas and rules of origin, were predicted to create and divert U.S. trade in textile goods and expand domestic textile production activities. Since its implementation, however, volatile macroeconomic and political environmental changes have severely interfered with the role of NAFTA. Over ten years have passed since the implementation of NAFTA. The objectives of this research are to investigate the pattern of the U.S. textile industry's production activities under NAFTA and to determine the impact of the agreement on the industry's production activities. This research consists of two parts. Part I is a qualitative analysis that investigates changes in the industry's trade and production activities under NAFTA based on the review of literature and trade and industry data. Part II of this research, a quantitative analysis, applies a normalized restricted translog profit model to the textile industry's production activities under the influence of NAFTA in order to identify the pattern of the industry's output supply and input demand and to determine the impact of NAFTA on the industry. The outcomes of these analyses are used to make an overall assessment of the impact of NAFTA on the U.S. textile industry and draw policy implications. The outcome of the qualitative analysis suggests NAFTA as an effective policy in expanding and regionalizing U.S. trades in textile goods and promoting domestic textile production activities in the early years of implementation. Since the late 1990s, however, macroeconomic and political changes have dominated over the role of NAFTA, partially undoing the changes in U.S. textile trade and production activities made in the early years of the agreement. The outcome of quantitative analysis identifies the significant, but negative effect, of NAFTA on the U.S. textile industry's profit performance in the early years of NAFTA, probably due to intensified import competition, fall of real output prices, and numerous mill closings. Overall, NAFTA is recognized as a short-term, transitional policy measure for the U.S. textile industry because of the limited importance of Mexico in U.S. textile trade, the short period of NAFTA implementation, and several dynamic environmental factors including exchange rate changes, U.S. signings of multiple regional trade agreements, and the emerging dominance of China in world textile trade under the phase-out of the Multi-fiber Arrangement that have changed international and domestic textile market competition. Ultimately, this study concludes that a trade policy is not likely to provide a long-term solution for the survival of U.S. textile industry. / Ph. D.

A continuing interest in the relationship between the 'decorative' and the 'technological' is a key area that underpins the author's artistic practice. This paper surveys the historical links between the production of applied and decorative art and the emergence of associated technologies as it relates to the author's Art practice. The focus is on Asia's influence on European applied and decorative arts as resulting from the trade relationship evolved over many centuries. Particular emphasis is placed on the period between 17th-19th centuries and with specific reference to textiles. This trade relationship affected European taste, the supply and demand of luxury goods, and introduced technological developments, which in turn had a marked effect on the European social and cultural environment. A brief comparison is made with contemporary trade and production relationships between the West and developng nations, particularly in the East-looking at parallels in trade patterns and systems, which were laid down during 17th-19th century period and are still present today. / Master of Arts (Hons) Contemporary Art

國際貿易會決定國內不同行為者的利益分配，促使國內產生主張自由貿易與支持保護主義的陣營，進而影響貿易政策的制訂。本論文以紡織品貿易為主題，首先闡述保護主義為何在貿易自由化浪潮中，依舊能夠貫穿20世紀後半葉的紡織品貿易，卻又在1990年代末期開始式微；其次，本論文分析當全球紡織品貿易於2005年全面取消配額之後，中國紡織品的大量出口，如何引發進口國內部保護主義勢力的反撲，令歐盟和美國先後和中國重新展開紡織品配額談判。最後，本論文分析歐、美境內自由貿易與保護主義兩個陣營，如何影響和中國的談判結果，並藉此比較具有不同制度的經濟體，如何回應國際經濟秩序的變化。 本文援引Robert Putnam所提出的「雙層賽局」分析架構，並進一步討論國內制度如何國際談判產生影響。經研究後發現，歐盟和美國內部的政治聯盟是影響談判結果的重要因素。這兩起談判雖然都源於本國紡織業者在受到中國紡織品的強力挑戰之後，進而要求政府必須出面解決這個問題，但是，由於歐盟和美國內部政治制度設計的不同，讓不同陣營有不同的施力空間，最後使得兩起談判結果有所差異。在歐盟方面，紡織產業和進口商之間的衝突，透過歐盟尊重多元的政治制度設計而有了旗鼓相當的局勢，因此歐盟執委會出面和中國談判之前，必須兼顧這兩個陣營的利益，令歐盟和中國的談判結果較有利於中國紡織品出口。但是在美國方面，儘管進口商和紡織業者之間的利益也是有所衝突，不過紡織業者最後透過政治運作而佔了上風，加上美國政府也希望藉由限制中國紡織品來降低對中國的貿易逆差，使得中美談判的結果對中國較為嚴格，具有濃厚的保護主義色彩。 / International trade distributes various interests to actors, who then form two camps supporting free trade and protectionism, respectively. Both two camps also influence the decision-making of trade policy. This thesis focuses on textile trade and analyzes why protectionism could prevail in the textile trade during the second half of 20th century, and why it declined in the end of 1990s. Second, this thesis analyzes how China’s considerable textile exports after 2005 incur resistances of protectionists in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). Those protectionists request their government to negotiate with China on textile products. However, those requests attract the counterpunches from supporters of free trade. By rendering the “Two-level Game Theory”, this thesis discovers that the domestic coalitions in the EU and the US significantly determine the results of negotiations. Although both negotiations result from powerful challenges of Chinese textile products, the EU and the US have their own institutional designs and then take different responses. In the EU, conflicts between textile industry and textile importers are of approximately equal strength. The European Commission has to hold an eclectic position between the supporters of free trade and protectionists. As a result, the results of EU-Sino negotiation favor China’s textile export to the European market. On the other hand, even though there are conflicts between textile producers and importers, producers get the upper hand by lobbying politicians. In addition, because the US government also intends to reduce the US’ tremendous trade deficit with China by limiting China’s textile product, the US-Sino textile quota negotiation is much more protectionism-oriented.

Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-154).

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