This book is part of the World Economies series, which provides country histories of the most important economies of the world. Mexico, today’s sixteenth largest economy, showed a remarkable growth path since the Great Depression to the oil boom of the 1970s, as GDP increased on average 5 per cent each year. Then came the debt crisis, profound economic restructuring, and a fairly stable low growth rate of approximately 2 per cent per year on average until the present day. Thus, the gap between Mexico and the most developed countries, and with the most prosperous emerging markets, has widened since the 1980s. The near future does not look promising.

The aim of this work is to show the factors that explain this economic path and it focuses on Mexico’s overall performance with a close look at the various institutions, groups, entities and actors that have shaped Mexico’s development since the 1940s. As with other nations, it is not possible to speak of a continuum, across the country, given its diverse geography and ethnic groups. Thus, regions and particular sectors are considered in detail only when it is necessary to understand the country’s path of development and its current situation. The approach adopted also gives due consideration to political economy arguments that help explain historic major turning points and public decisions that have made a long-lasting impact. This is essential to understanding Mexico’s present and future. The periodization shown throughout the book is determined by those turning points that shape the topics of the various chapters. Although there is a coincidental path in several areas, not all reflect a homogeneous path of development, for example, public efforts to improve education does not necessarily match in time with efforts to increase health coverage.

The book provides a general understanding of the origins of Mexico’s recent economic development as well as its current structure, regional differences, social polarization, productivity gaps and the challenges ahead posed by the new government. It also examines the relative robustness of macroeconomic fundamentals that have shaped economic and social policy over the years, with disregard to ideological differences of various governments since the 1990s.