Mexico's Economic Growth and the Balance of Payments Constraint: A cointegration analysis

This paper applies the basic balance-of-payments constraint model (BPCmodel), developed by A.P. Thirlwall, to the analysis of Mexico's economic growth in 1950-96.With the use of unit-root tests and cointegration analysis it estimates the long-run association between the growth of Mexico's real exports and real output in 1950-96, and selected subperiods. The results tend to show significant and positive cointegration between these two variables, thus giving support to the BPC-model as a relevant hypothesis to explain Mexico's long-term economic growth. Moreover, the findings of cointegration tests for selected subperiods suggest that the slowdown in its economic growth since 1982 is associated with an increase in the long-term income elasticity of imports that made more binding the balance-of-payments constraint on the expansion of domestic output.