Mexico's manufacturing competitiveness in the US market: A short-term analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of some key variables on Mexican manufacturing competitiveness in the US market. To that end, we construct an international competitiveness (IC) index for the manufacturing sector. The responsiveness of such an index to an ample set of variables is evaluated through the use of a stationary VAR model. The short-term empirical evidence indicates that: 1) real currency depreciation weakens, rather than strengthens, IC; 2) labor productivity has a strong positive effect on IC, and 3) a real interest rate increase reduces IC. These findings reflect three fundamental problems of the Mexican manufacturing sector and thus have important economic policy implications.

Constraints on the performance and competitiveness of Tanzania’s manufacturing exports

“…Consistent with other studies, our analysis includes the following set of variables referred to as Control in Equation 1: institutional quality, foreign demand, GVC index/imported intermediate inputs, domestic demand, inflation, RER, tariff, labour productivity, FDI, and mobile cellular phone subscriptions per 100 people as a proxy for the telecommunications aspect of infrastructure (Hassan 2017;Hossain 2011;Kadir 2016;Lee et al 2016;Martina et al 2015;Muhammad et al 2006;Muratoglu and Muratoglu 2016;Olczyk and Kordalska 2017a;Villarreal and Ahumada 2015).…”

Determinantes de la competitividad en la manufactura mexiquense: un análisis a nivel de subsector, 2018

“…Diversas causas explican la pérdida de competitividad de la manufactura; entre ellas, la orientación a sectores tradicionales (Rózga y Ruíz, 2008), la ausencia de industrias basadas en ciencia (Carbajal, Mejía y Rendón, 2008;Rendón et al, 2013), la desconcentración de la región centro hacia la centro-norte (Carbajal, 2015) y las diferencias entre la productividad del trabajo de dichas regiones (Chávez y López, 2014). Ciertos trabajos sobre la competitividad de la industria nacional han explorado el vínculo con el exterior (Casar, 1993) y las capacidades nacionales para participar en mercados internaciones (Guzmán y Toledo, 2005;Navarro y Ayvar, 2009;Morales y Rendón, 2000); así como también la productividad, las exportaciones, y los costos laborales nacionales frente a las economías norteamericana, china y canadiense (Calderón y Cuevas, 2015).…”