 Was NAFTA behind Mexico's high maquiladora growth?Economic and Financial Policy Review, 2001, issue Q III, 21 pages Abstract: Although Mexico's maquiladora system is an important and well-recognized component of Mexico-U.S. trade, the connection between the acceleration in maquiladora growth and NAFTA is less clearly understood. A broad cross section of observers -- including journalists, political activists, industry analysts, and academics -- argue that Mexico's maquiladoras have been strongly influenced by NAFTA and have grown rapidly as a result. William C. Gruben finds no such connection when he tests for NAFTA's contribution to fluctuations in maquiladora employment. Instead, he finds that maquiladoras' post-NAFTA growth is connected to changes in Mexican wages relative to those in Asia and the United States and to fluctuations in U.S. industrial production. For every 1 percent change in U.S. industrial production , maquiladora employment changes between 1.2 percent and 1.3 percent. This connection is consistent with declining maquiladora employment in 2001, as U.S. industrial production has fallen, but is not consistent with the contention that NAFTA was responsible for Mexico's high maquiladora growth. Keywords: North American Free Trade Agreement; Mexico; Maquiladora (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedder:y:2001:i:qiii:p:11-21 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article More articles in Economic and Financial Policy Review from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Contact information at EDIRC. |
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