آیا آزاد سازی اقتصادی و پیمان نفتا تاثیر مثبتی بر روند رشد خروجی مکزیک داشته است؟

This paper analyses the role of real exports, and foreign direct investment in explaining real growth in an era of economic liberalisation. The econometric approach is based on time series analysis using VARs, Granger causality, impulse response functions and variance decomposition. The empirical results reveal that exports Granger cause output growth in Mexico, which is a possible confirmation of the Export-led growth paradigm. However, no effect from FDI on GDP is found. The inclusion of NAFTA's potential impact confirms the positive effect of exports and reveals that GDP and exports Granger cause FDI. The evidence suggests that export promotion and liberalisation in Mexico had the potential to attract greater flows of foreign capital and induce economic growth.

The role of exports and foreign direct investment (FDI) in explaining economic growth in developing nations is an issue that continues to be of considerable theoretical and empirical interest. Since the early 1980s, and particularly since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, Mexico * Belem I. Vasquez Galan (corresponding author): El Colegio de la Frontera Norte A.C., Técnicos 277, Col. Tecnológico, Monterrey, NL. 64700, Mexico. Email: belem.vasquez@gmail.com. Olajide S. Oladipo: School of Business, Adelphi University, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY 11530, USA. Email: oladipo@adelphi.edu. Many thanks to the anonymous referees for their useful comments. Special thanks to Prof. Jim Ford of the University of Birmingham and El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia [CONACYT] for its financial aid. experienced large inflows of FDI and export production. From 1985, the Mexican government has pursued active policies that continue to remove barriers to investment from multinational corporations with the hope that FDI will promote economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if exports and FDI have been decisive in explaining economic growth in Mexico (from 1980 to 2002). We also investigate if NAFTA has made a difference in the way exports, FDI and GDP interact. A dynamic analysis through impulse-response functions is presented to analyse how the variables respond to shocks in the innovations. This could be helpful to determine if policy changes are likely to create a positive response in the long-run. The questions we seek to answer are: is there a meaningful causal relationship among exports, FDI and GDP? What is the nature of such relationship? Are there any co-integrating vectors that suggest a long-run relationship? Has NAFTA improved the effect of exports and FDI on growth? And what is the response of GDP, FDI and exports to shocks? Following the introduction, Section II contains a brief review of the Mexican economy. Section III discusses the literature review while Section IV contains the empirical methodology. Section V presents the results and the last section conclude