IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/emx/esteco/v19y2004i2p285-325.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Apertura comercial y remuneraciones a los factores: La experiencia mexicana

Author

Listed:
  • Alicia Puyana

    (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales)

  • José Romero

    (El Colegio de México)

Abstract

In Mexico after 1980, wages and salaries stagnated while returns to capital increased. This article analyses the causes of this phenomenon during the 1980-2000. It suggests that the opening to foreign trade ought to have constituted a considerable force for raising wages and diminishing profits. The existence of an unlimited labour supply, however, impeded the rise in incomes that the opening to foreign trade would otherwise have brought about and transformed the rise in productivity resulting from technological modernization into, mainly, increasing returns on capital. Also suggests that the expansion of the qualified workforce, which is seen across all sectors, is not a consequence of generalized technological advance raising demand for more highly qualified workers, but merely reflects changes that have taken place on the labour supply side itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Alicia Puyana & José Romero, 2004. "Apertura comercial y remuneraciones a los factores: La experiencia mexicana," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 19(2), pages 285-325.
  • Handle: RePEc:emx:esteco:v:19:y:2004:i:2:p:285-325
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://estudioseconomicos.colmex.mx/index.php/economicos/article/view/171/173
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Easterly & Norbert Fiess & Daniel Lederman, 2003. "NAFTA and Convergence in North America: High Expectations, Big Events, Little Time," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2003), pages 1-53, August.
    2. Hanson, G.H. & Harrison, A., 1995. "Trade, Technology and Wage Inequality," Papers 95-20, Columbia - Graduate School of Business.
    3. Esquivel, Gerardo & Rodriguez-Lopez, Jose Antonio, 2003. "Technology, trade, and wage inequality in Mexico before and after NAFTA," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 543-565, December.
    4. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1975. "The Theory of "Screening," Education, and the Distribution of Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 283-300, June.
    5. Deininger, Klaus & Olinto, Pedro, 2000. "Asset distribution, inequality, and growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2375, The World Bank.
    6. Gordon H. Hanson, 2003. "What Has Happened to Wages in Mexico since NAFTA?," NBER Working Papers 9563, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alicia Puyana & José Romero, 2005. "Reforma estructural, contención de los salarios y ganancias del capital: la experiencia mexicana," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 7(12), pages 63-95, January-J.
    2. Julio Huato, 2005. "Maquiladoras and Standard of Living in Mexico Before and After NAFTA," Development and Comp Systems 0508006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Andrew B. Bernard & Raymond Robertson & Peter K. Schott, 2010. "Is Mexico a Lumpy Country?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 937-950, November.
    4. Miguel Fuentes & Pablo Ibarrarán, 2012. "Firm dynamics and real exchange rate fluctuations: Does trade openness matter? Evidence from Mexico's manufacturing sector," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 409-469, May.
    5. Noria, Gabriela López, 2015. "The effect of trade and FDI on inter-industry wage differentials: The case of Mexico," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 381-397.
    6. Garduno-Rivera, Rafael & Baylis, Katherine R., 2012. "Effect of Tariff Liberalization on Mexico’s Income Distribution in the presence of Migration," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124740, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez & Nora Lustig, 2017. "Labour income inequality in Mexico: Puzzles solved and unsolved," Working Papers 1719, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    8. Bosch, Mariano & Manacorda, Marco, 2008. "Minimum wages and earnings inequality in urban Mexico. Revisiting the evidence," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19561, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Kurokawa, Yoshinori, 2011. "Is a skill intensity reversal a mere theoretical curiosum? Evidence from the US and Mexico," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 151-154, August.
    10. Claudia Tello & Raul Ramos & Manuel Artís, 2012. "Changes in wage structure in Mexico going beyond the mean: An analysis of differences in distribution, 1987-2008," Working Papers XREAP2012-07, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised May 2012.
    11. Puyana, Alicia, 2012. "Mexican Agriculture and NAFTA: A 20-Year Balance Sheet," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 2(1), July.
    12. Nora Lustig & Jaime Ros, 2011. "Latin America's Economic Challenges: Lessons for Emerging Economies," Working Papers 1112, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    13. Willy W. Cortez, 2005. "Dispersión y Estabilidad de las Diferencias Salariales interestatales en México, 1984-2000," Development and Comp Systems 0502014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. André Varella Mollick & Jorge Ibarra-Salazar, 2013. "Productivity Effects on the Wage Premium of Mexican Maquiladoras," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 27(3), pages 208-220, August.
    15. Ayuma Ken Kikkawa & Yuan Mei & Pablo Robles Santamarina & Ken Kikkawa, 2019. "The Impact of NAFTA on Prices and Competition: Evidence from Mexican Manufacturing Plants," CESifo Working Paper Series 7700, CESifo.
    16. Gurleen K. Popli, 2007. "Rising Wage Inequality in Mexico, 1984-2000: A Distributional Analysis," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 16(2), pages 49-67, June.
    17. De Hoyos, Rafael E. & Iacovone, Leonardo, 2013. "Economic Performance under NAFTA: A Firm-Level Analysis of the Trade-productivity Linkages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 180-193.
    18. Cardoso-Vargas, Carlos, 2015. "Potencial de mercado y desigualdad salarial, evidencia para México [Market potential and wage inequality, evidence for Mexico]," MPRA Paper 69696, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Nov 2015.
    19. Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez & Nora Lustig, 2017. "Labour income inequality in Mexico: Puzzles solved and unsolved," Working Papers 1719, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    20. Rolando I. Valdez & Francisco García-Fernández, 2022. "The distribution of wage inequality across municipalities in Mexico: a spatial quantile regression approach," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 17(3), pages 669-697, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:emx:esteco:v:19:y:2004:i:2:p:285-325. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ximena Varela (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cecolmx.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.