Foreign Direct Investment, Exports and Imports in Mexico

This paper analyses the liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico since the late 1980s, and its relationships with exports and imports. Such a process has eased the access of multinational corporations (MNCs) to the country, which has promoted exports. However, it has also resulted in a higher import content and the displacement of local firms, which has limited Mexico's economic development through the balance of payments constraint. The analysis is supported by the existence of linkages – bidirectional Granger causality – between exports, imports and FDI.