The labyrinth of investment in Mexican trade and financial opening

Abstract

Since its beginning the 1980s, the globalized model of economic development in Mexico has generated paradoxical results. On the positive side, Mexico attained a privileged position among the mayor economies of the world by becoming the 13th largest exporter and the 12th main importer, while simultaneously turning into a high-ranking recipient of foreign direct investment. These positive results deeply diverge with the mediocre performance in economic growth and the high levels of unemployment, informality and poverty. In this paper we argue that these paradoxical results are the consequence of structural disequilibrium caused by the reorientation of production towards export-based global value chains, which did not contribute to the development of an integrated industrial sector with forward and backward linkages between foreign and local firms. The flows of trade and investment that were stimulated by the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) did not promote economic growth in Mexico because of structural weaknesses that derived from an exporting sector where foreign firms limited the value-added produced by local firms, and created an inelastic supply of imported inputs. Hence, the export-led model became a development strategy that weakened the capacity for the consolidation of a strong and dynamic internal market.