In many Latin American countries, census data on race and skin color are scarce or nonexistent. In this study, we contribute to understanding how skin color affects intergenerational social mobility in Mexico. Using a novel data set, we provide evidence of profound social stratification by skin color, even after controlling for specific individual characteristics that previous work has not been able to include, such as individual cognitive and noncognitive abilities, parental education and wealth, and measures of stress and parenting style in the home of origin. Results indicate that people in the lightest skin color category have an average of 1.4 additional years of schooling and 53 % more in hourly earnings than their darkest-skinned counterparts. Social mobility is also related to skin color. Individuals in the darkest category are 20 percentile ranks lower in the current wealth distribution than those in the lightest category, conditional on parental wealth. In addition, results of a quantile regression indicate that the darkest group shows higher downward mobility.

In January 2014, Mexico addressed its epidemic of obesity by implementing an excise tax of 1 peso (1 MXN) per liter on soft drinks. This study evaluates the pass-through of the tax, the influence on the tax of competition among different stores, and the after-tax price dispersion. Using an unbalanced panel of weekly prices for 553 stores throughout Mexico, we estimate that the tax increases the per-liter price of soda by 1.12 pesos, of juice by 0.25 pesos, of sports drinks by 1.52 pesos, and of powdered drink mixes by 0.24 pesos. Using information on store locations, we also calculate the degree of competition faced by each store and find that with greater competition in the relevant market, there is less overall pass-through, although the results for individual drink types are statistically significant only for sodas. For those stores facing the greatest competition, the pass-through effect is perfect shifting. We also find that markets with greater competition show a lesser degree of price dispersion.