Effective description of quark mixing

We use the effective Lagrangian formalism to describe quark mixing. The new W+/-, Z and H couplings generalizing the CKM matrix and the GIM mechanism fulfill relations and inequalities which allow to discriminate among different SM extensions. As a by-product we give a useful parameterization of the generalized CKM matrix. We also show that the largest possible departures from the SM predictions result from heavy exotic fermions, which can induce, for example, top FCNC large enough to be observable at future colliders. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.