REGIONAL INTEGRATION AGREEMENTS AND THE BORDERLESS MARKET: LESSONS FROM HISTORY

This paper examines the phenomenon of market consolidation and integration, where competitors in localized, isolated markets are forced to compete with numerous new rivals in a unified market. In contemporary business experience, this deluge of new competitors and new competitive forms is the consequence of forces which have served to integrate formerly isolated national competitive arenas into a unified, interdependent whole, known as a globalized or regionalized market (Johnson, 1991). This evolution of global and regional markets is strategically significant to the extent that past market consolidations have typically resulted in devastating economic battles and competitive shakeouts. It is thus important to analyze the effects of national policy issues such as international trade agreements from the perspective of global or regional market consolidation.