Development and Growth in the Mexican Economy

This book is the first comprehensive and systematic English-language treatment of Mexico's economic history to appear in nearly forty years. Drawing on several years of in-depth research, Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid and Jamie Ros, two of the foremost experts on the Mexican economy, examineMexico's current development policies and problems from a historical perspective. They review long term trends in the Mexican economy and analyze past episodes of radical shifts in development strategy and in the role of markets and the state. Their book provides an overview of Mexico's economicdevelopment since Independence that compares the successive periods of stagnation and growth that alternately have characterized Mexico's economic history. It gives special attention to developments since 1940 and presents a re-evaluation of Mexico's development policies during the State-ledindustrialization period from 1940 to 1982 and during the more recent market reform process. This re-evaluation is critical of the dominant trend in the economic literature and revisionist by arguing that in particular, the market reforms undertaken by successive Mexican governments since 1983, havenot addressed the fundamental obstacles to economic growth. Development and Growth in the Mexican Economy: An Historical Perspective also details the country's pioneering role in launching NAFTA, its membership in the OECD, and its radical macroeconomic reforms. Carefully argued and meticulously researched, the book presents a wide-ranging, authoritativestudy that not only pinpoints problems, but also suggests solutions for removing obstacles to economic stability and pointing the Mexican economy toward the road to recovery.

Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid, an economist at ECLAC-UN, specializes in development and economic growth, mainly of Mexico and Latin America. He has published articles in academic journals such as World Development, Development and Change, CEPAL-Review, Metroeconomica, Investigacion Economica, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, International Review of Applied Economics, Harvard Review of Latin America, International Journal of Political Economy, Nueva Sociedad, Revista Mexicana de Sociologia, and Economia Mexicana. He is a member of the Refereeing Board of El Trimestre Economico and of the Editorial Board of EconomiaUNAM.
Jaime Ros is professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame and fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. He specializes in development economics with special reference to Mexico and Latin America. His most recent book is Development Theory and the Economics of Growth. His articles have appeared in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, World Development, Journal of Development Studies, The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, El Trimestre Economico, and Desarrollo Economico, as well as other scholarly journals and edited books.

Introduction	p. 3
Aim and scope of the book	p. 3
Overview	p. 11
The "Origins of Backwardness": Obstacles to Economic Development in the 19th Century	p. 18
The economy of New Spain on the eve of independence	p. 20
Economic decline and political instability: the origins of backwardness	p. 28
Liberal misperceptions in the mid-19th century?	p. 38
Mexico's decline in international perspective	p. 40
The Porfiriato and the Beginnings of Modern Economic Growth	p. 45
Order and progress	p. 46
Expansion of the railway network and integration of the domestic market	p. 49
Financial capital and foreign investment	p. 52
Institutional modernization and the international environment	p. 54
Modernization with inequality	p. 56
Limits and downfall	p. 64
Revolution, the 1930s, and the Consolidation of a Developmental State	p. 68
Revolution and the emergence of a new social pact	p. 68
The revolution and its aftermath: demographic consequences and economic changes	p. 71
Recession and depression from 1926 to 1932	p. 77
Economic recovery and industry-led growth from 1933 to 1940	p. 82
The consolidation of a developmental state under Cardenas	p. 85
Overall performance (1910-1940) and a comparative perspective	p. 89
The Golden Age of Industrialization	p. 93
Trade, industrial, and financial policies	p. 94
The war boom (1941-1945)	p. 99
Growth with a devaluation-inflation cycle (1946-1955)	p. 103
Development with macroeconomic stability (1956-1970)	p. 107
Long-term productivity performance and the pattern of growth	p. 112
Modernization with inequality revisited	p. 115
The golden age in an international perspective	p. 119
The Loss of Macroeconomic Stability, the Oil Boom, and the Debt Crisis	p. 124
From shared development to two-digit inflation and the 1976 currency crisis	p. 124
The oil boom, 1978-1981	p. 131
The 1982 debt crisis	p. 138
Interpretations of the internal causes of the 1976 and 1982 crises	p. 140
The Years of Adjustment, the Lost Decade, and the Reform Process	p. 146
The years of adjustment and stabilization	p. 147
Mexico's adjustment in the Latin American context	p. 156
The lost decade	p. 161
The reform process	p. 162
The Shift in the Market-State Balance and the Quest for Export-Led Growth	p. 176
Privatization and economic efficiency	p. 178
Trade liberalization, industrial policy reform, and the quest for (nonoil) export-led growth	p. 181
A deepening agricultural dualism	p. 197
Financial liberalization, the capital surge, and the 1994-1995 peso crisis	p. 199
A weak state	p. 202
Social Policy, Poverty, and Inequality	p. 206
The increase in social spending and the rise of targeted antipoverty programs	p. 207
Trends in inequality and poverty	p. 211
Poverty reduction, slow growth, and the demographic dividend	p. 216
The difficult tasks of social policy	p. 220
Why Has Post-reform Growth Been Disappointing?	p. 222
Mexico's development gap	p. 222
Trade expansion without export-led growth	p. 226
Is productivity performance the culprit for the growth slowdown?	p. 231
Human capital formation and the growth slowdown	p. 235
Low investment, slow growth	p. 238
Liberal misperceptions at the turn of the century?	p. 243
Conclusions	p. 252
Appendix: Historical Series of Economic and Social Indicators	p. 261
References	p. 279
Index	p. 305
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Development and Growth in the Mexican Economy A Historical Perspective

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