Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

NAFTA and Mexico's Less-Than-Stellar Performance

Contents:

Author Info

  • Aaron Tornell
  • Frank Westermann
  • Lorenza Martinez

Abstract

Mexico, a prominent liberalizer, failed to attain stellar gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the 1990s, and since 2001 its GDP and exports have stagnated. In this paper we argue that the lack of spectacular growth in Mexico cannot be blamed on either the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or the other reforms that were implemented, but on the lack of further judicial and structural reform after 1995. In fact, the benefits of liberalization can be seen in the extraordinary growth of exports and foreign domestic investment (FDI). The key to the Mexican puzzle lies in Mexico's response to crisis: a deterioration in contract enforceability and an increase in nonperforming loans. As a result, the credit crunch in Mexico has been far deeper and far more protracted than in the typical developing country. The credit crunch has hit the nontradables sector especially hard and has generated bottlenecks, which have blocked growth in the tradables sector and have contributed to the recent fall in exports.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10289.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10289.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Feb 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10289

Note: IFM
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2003. "Export versus FDI," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1998, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  2. Nora Lustig, 2001. "Life Is Not Easy: Mexico's Quest for Stability and Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 85-106, Winter.
  3. Markusen, James R., 2002. "Multinational Firms and the Theory of International Trade," MPRA Paper 8380, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & BRUCE C. PETERSEN, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
  5. Aaron Tornell & Gerardo Esquivel, 1995. "The Political Economy of Mexico's Entry to NAFTA," NBER Working Papers 5322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Lai, Kon S, 1993. "Finite-Sample Sizes of Johansen's Likelihood Ration Tests for Conintegration," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 55(3), pages 313-28, August.
  7. Aaron Tornell & Frank Westermann & Lorenza Martinez, 2003. "Liberalization, Growth, and Financial Crises: Lessons from Mexico and the Developing World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2), pages 1-112.
  8. Gaston Gelos & Alejandro M. Werner, 1999. "Financial Liberalization, Credit Constraints, and Collateral - Investment in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector," IMF Working Papers 99/25, International Monetary Fund.
  9. Aaron Tornell & Frank Westermann, 2003. "Credit Market Imperfections in Middle Income Countries," NBER Working Papers 9737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Ashoka Mody & Assaf Razin & Efraim Sadka, 2003. "The Role of Information in Driving FDI Flows: Host-Country Tranparency and Source Country Specialization," NBER Working Papers 9662, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Rudiger Dornbusch & Alejandro Werner, 1994. "Mexico: Stabilization, Reform, and No Growth," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(1), pages 253-316.
  12. Martinez, Lorenza & Werner, Alejandro, 2002. "The exchange rate regime and the currency composition of corporate debt: the Mexican experience," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 315-334, December.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Escobar Gamboa, Octavio Romano, 2009. "IDE entrants, exportations et productivité manufacturière : les différentes performances des régions mexicaines," Open Access publications from Université Paris-Dauphine urn:hdl:123456789/3850, Université Paris-Dauphine.
  2. Pratap, Sangeeta & Urrutia, Carlos, 2004. "Firm dynamics, investment and debt portfolio: balance sheet effects of the Mexican crisis of 1994," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 535-563, December.
  3. Christian Freres & Andrew Mold, 2004. "European Union Trade Policy and the Poor. Towards Improving the Poverty Impact of the GSP in Latin America," Working Papers del Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales 02-04, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales.
  4. Gordon H. Hanson, 2010. "Why Isn't Mexico Rich?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(4), pages 987-1004, December.
  5. Robertson, Raymond, 2004. "Defining North American Economic Integration," North American Agrifood Integration: Situation and Perspectives, May 2004, Cancun, Mexico 16732, Farm Foundation.
  6. Patrick Artus, 2006. "Intégration commerciale avec des pays émergents ayant des ressources importantes en main-d'œuvre qualifiée. Quels effets pour les pays européens ?," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(4), pages 673-704.
  7. Irineu E. Carvalho Filho & Marcos Chamon, 2008. "The Myth of Post-Reform Income Stagnation: Evidence from Brazil and Mexico," IMF Working Papers 08/197, International Monetary Fund.
  8. Octavio Escobar, 2011. "The location pattern of FDI in Mexico after NAFTA," ERSA conference papers ersa10p804, European Regional Science Association.
  9. Kaplan, David S. & Gonzalez, Gabriel Martinez & Robertson, Raymond, 2007. "Mexican employment dynamics : evidence from matched firm-worker data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4433, The World Bank.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10289

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.