According to Lorenzo Caliendo, an economist at the Yale School of Management, a surge in cross-border trade and increases in real (inflation-adjusted) wages in all three countries can be attributed to NAFTA – even once other factors, like the opening of China, the peso crisis, the dot-com bubble, and the Great Recession, are taken into account. In short, as former US Secretary of State George Shultz has noted, “NAFTA has transformed the region.”
耶鲁商学院经济学家洛伦佐·卡里安多（Lorenzo Caliendo）指出，这三个国家的跨境贸易的激增和实际（经通胀调整的）工资增长都可以归因于NAFTA——即使考虑到其他因素（如中国的开放、比索危机、互联网泡沫和大衰退）是也是如此。简言之，正如前美国国务卿乔治·舒尔茨（George Shultz）所指出的，“NAFTA改变了整个地区。”