In the Atlantic lowland tropical rainforests of the Rio San Juan region, Nicaragua, we are conducting applied vegetation community analyses within an attempt to integrate non—timber forest products with natural forest management. Two long—term sampling plots were evaluated: one primary tropical rainforest plot before and 1 yr after selective logging, and another plot 9 yr after selective logging with and without Hutchinson Liberation Silviculture treatment (in which selected young trees are released from competition for light). The purpose of the study was to evaluate changes in community ecology variables with logging, damage, regeneration, and silviculture, both for useful plant species and for the plant community as a whole, and to evaluate the potential for incorporating non—timber forest product management with silvicultural management. One year after logging there was an increase in species (from 19± 5 to 33± 10 species/10m2) and density (from 42 ± 19 to 120 ± 60 plants/10m2) due to establishment or increase of secondary species (vines, grasses, balsa, cecropia) and to seedling regeneration after logging. The more severe the logging damage the more severe were the effects on some variables, particularly increased densities of vines and secondary species. Forest plots 9 yr post—harvest appeared to be returning to pre—harvest levels of species (28 ± 6 species/10m2) and density (76 ± 21 plants/10m2). Hutchinson Liberation Silviculture, while promoting growth of desired timber, did not significantly affect either non—timber forest products or the basic physiognomy of the forest. These results are contrasted with other silvicultural systems, particularly the Hartshorn Strip Clearcut, in which regeneration was dominated by resprouts and the proportion of vines was even higher. Hutchinson Liberation Silviculture provides the potential for simultaneous management of non—timber forest products, and moreover, non—timber forest product management holds the potential for significantly reinforcing silvicultural management.

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Improved competitiveness is at the top of the agenda for Mexico as it moves to leverage economic progress made over the past decade. This paper evaluates the impact of changes in trade facilitation measures on trade for main industrial sectors in Mexico. Four indicators of trade facilitation are used: Port Efficiency, Customs Environment, Regulatory Environment, and e-commerce use by business (as a proxy for Service Sector Infrastructure).We use the gravity model results to consider how much trade among countries might be increased under various scenarios of improved trade facilitation. Our goal is to inform directions for specific trade facilitation initiatives with the highest potential to increase trade. We examine scenarios that focus on improvements in Port Efficiency, Customs Environment, Service Sector Infrastructure, and Regulatory Environment. We follow a simulation strategy that uses a formula to design a unique program of reform for each country in the sample, and apply it to the specific case of Mexico. The formula brings below-average countries in the group half-way to the average for the entire set of countries. We focus on the below-average country on the grounds that donor attention and capacity building efforts should be extended to this group. We choose an improvement of half-way to the average because there are limited development resources and improvements take time.After simulating these improvements in trade facilitation in all four areas, we find that the total increase in trade flow in manufacturing goods is estimated to be $348.2 billion (about 7.4% of total world trade).The analysis in this paper indicates that Mexico has a large scope for trade promotion from trade facilitation reform: overall increments from domestic reforms are expected to be on the order of $31.8 billion, equivalent to 22.4% of total Mexican manufacturing exports for 2000-2003. On the imports side, these figures are $17.1 billion and 11.2%, respectively. In total exports as well as in Textiles, increases in exports result from improvements in Port Efficiency and the Regulatory Environment (i.e., the perception of corruption). In turn, exports of Transport Equipment are expected to get a greater increment from improvements in Port Efficiency, whereas exports of Food and Machinery seem to be more related to improvements in the Regulatory Environment. On the imports side, Mexican improvements in Port Efficiency appear to be the most important factor, although for imports of Transport Equipment improvements in Service Sector Infrastructure are also of relative importance.Our results show that unilateral trade facilitation reforms for the case of Mexico could generate an increment of more than 20% for exports as well as about 11% for imports. These estimates suggest that trade facilitation measures should be considered seriously in any discussion about trade policy in Mexico.

Generalized method of moments-based model) 2.5. Recursive Estimates of Coefficient on Inflation Target (Recursive ordinary least squares estimates) 2.6. Dispersion of Inflation Forecasts