Mexico

Mexico is a country open to international trade. It has already signed 11 free trade agreements with 43 economies. The advantages of Mexico as an open market are multiplied... Show More + by the opportunities offered by its internal market of more than 112 million people. Mexico is the 11th largest economy worldwide in terms of gross domestic product and the second in Latin America. Since Mexico is not the only country promoting an attractive business environment, it is more important than ever that it continues to improve its competitiveness. A failure to do so will be a missed opportunity. Business regulations are especially relevant because they are implemented by the government and have an immediate impact. Mexico City represents Mexico in the annual Doing Business report, which compares 183 economies worldwide. However, entrepreneurs across Mexico face different regulations and local practices depending on the state and city where they do business. Therefore, regulatory improvements require the coordination of the 3 levels of government: federal, state and municipal, and the support of the legislative and judicial bodies, as well as key stakeholders, such as notaries. In 2005, in an effort to examine this regulatory diversity, the Office of the President requested a study that will go beyond Mexico City. This led to the creation of the Doing Business in Mexico subnational series. Doing Business in Mexico 2012 is the fourth report in this series. Show Less -

Outdated hospital facilities meant long lines and substandard care for the citizens of Toluca and Tlalnepantla, two densely populated areas in Mexico. Private sector... Show More + best practices and investment were needed to improve health services to patients and users and the use of resources. To achieve this, the government hired International Finance Corporation (IFC) as lead advisor to the state's social security institute, a health insurer, on an innovative public-private partnership for two new 120-bed hospitals. Show Less -

This country level trade brief summarizes insights from the world trade indicators database as well as analyzes national impacts and responses to the food crisis and... Show More + global recession. The trade at a glance tables for Mexico provide a snapshot of key aspects of trade policy and performance. Show Less -

The Status of Projects in Execution (SOPE) report for FY09 provides information on all International Bank and Rural Development (IBRD)/International Development Association... Show More + (IDA) projects that were active on June 30, 2009. The report is intended to bridge the gap in information available to the public between the project appraisal document, disclosed after the Bank approves a project, and the implementation completion report, disclosed after the project closes. In addition to the project progress description, the FY09 SOPE report contains project level comparisons of disbursement estimates and actual disbursements, and a table showing the loan/credit/grant amount and disbursements to date for all active projects. Show Less -

This report addresses a pressing issue in Mexico's electricity sector the large and growing subsidies to residential consumers and their regressive incidence across... Show More + different segments of the population. It responds to requests from the Ministry of Energy to provide a preliminary assessment of alternatives to the current subsidy system, building on prior collaboration between the Government of Mexico and the World Bank on the distributional impact of public spending, the performance of conditional cash transfer programs and other poverty-targeted programs, and related work on pricing and subsidies for infrastructure services. This study was designed as the first phase of a multiphase program of collaborative analytical work. This first phase provides estimates of the distributional and fiscal performance of alternative subsidy targeting mechanisms to help inform discussion and deliberations on feasible goals and practical approaches over the medium term. A second phase will address transition paths, specific compensatory mechanisms, and decision processes for pursuing the options that the Mexican authorities deem most promising. Show Less -

Recent developments in trade theory, especially research on multi-product firms, have not been matched by similar progress on the empirical front. This paper aims to... Show More + fill this gap by presenting a novel set of stylized facts on firm-product dynamics observed during an export boom. This exercise is possible thanks to a unique firm-product level dataset covering about 85 percent of Mexican industrial output for the period 1994-2003. The main findings are as follows. First, there is a substantial degree of product turnover at the firm-product level in response to declining trade costs. Second, "core competencies" - the fact that firms have a cost advantage or greater expertise at manufacturing some of their products - are the main driver of firms' decision to introduce or drop export products. Third, new exporters tend to "start small" in terms of both values and number of exported products. Fourth, even if the expansion in the number of exported products played a role in stimulating Mexican exports, the growth in volume of pre-existing products was the main driver of the export boom. Finally, the introduction of new export products is preceded by a surge in investment. These findings are in line with many, but not all, predictions of recent theoretical work. Show Less -

A newly created dataset including 239 decisions made by the Mexican Federal Competition Commission on horizontal mergers between 1997 and 2001 is used to estimate the... Show More + different factors affecting the Commission's resolution. The paper approximates the decision making process using two different discrete choice models. The results indicate that, contrary to the Commission's objective, the presence of efficiency gains increases the probability of a case being issued. The findings also show that factors different from the ones explicitly mentioned by the Commission have a significant effect on the Commission's final decision. In particular, the presence of a foreign company among the would-be merger firms significantly increases the likelihood of observing an allowed merger. Show Less -

Recently, developing countries have witnessed a sharp increase in foreign bank participation. The authors examine the impact on banking outreach using newly gathered... Show More + data for Mexico, where foreign bank participation rose from 2 percent to 83 percent of assets during 1997-2005. Country-, bank-, and bank-municipality level estimations show a decline in the number of deposit and loan accounts. While country- and bank-level estimations indicate an increase in the share of municipalities with bank branches and in the likelihood of bank presence, bank-municipality regressions show that only rich and urban municipalities benefited. Overall, the evidence is consistent with a decline in outreach. Show Less -

The World Bank carried out the first country procurement assessment review (CPAR) jointly with the Government in 2001, focusing on the features and performance of the... Show More + federal procurement system. Based on the action plan included in the 2001 CPAR, the government reformed federal procurement laws and regulations in 2005 and furthered the development of Government Procurement Electronic System (COMPRANET), the federal government's electronic procurement system. The dialogue between the government and the banks intensified in early 2007 immediately after President Felipe Calderon took office. The key objectives of the new administration, included in the 2007-12 National Development Plan are: (a) State Security and Rights, (b) economic competitiveness and employment generation, (c) equity of opportunity, (d) environmental sustainability, and (e) effective democracy and responsible foreign policy. The plan establishes ten objectives to be attained, several of which are closely linked to the efficiency and transparency of the procurement system, namely, fostering a competitive economy, reducing poverty, promoting civil society participation, promoting environmental sustainability, and promoting democracy through the legal and ethical exercise of power. The new administration gives high priority to improving public procurement to facilitate the implementation of its agenda and asked the banks to help in carrying out a new review of the system. The government's objectives with respect to public sector procurement are twofold. First, the government is interested in identifying ways in which the procurement system can be improved to better manage resources and create fiscal space through savings and increased efficiency of processes. Second, the government intends to assess whether the procurement system is aligned with the administration's strategic objectives and, if not, what changes are required. Show Less -

This report is intended to bring into the policy dialogue with the Government of Mexico the issue of better performance and accountability in public financial management... Show More + at the sub-national level in Mexico. It is also designed to explain a multidisciplinary technical assistance exercise that the Bank has been carrying out since September 2004. Going forward, the Bank will support the continuing efforts of the two state commissions that bring together the state fiscal professionals and state comptrollers to establish viable and verifiable indicators, with the goal to arrive at a continuous process of government performance improvement. To do so, key challenges at the state level include the need to harmonize state accounting rules, to build administrative capacity at the subnational level, and to establish appropriate state legal frameworks, especially in the procurement area. The federal government can do its part to arrive at collaborative solutions by being flexible, providing resources, and coordinating the efforts of the relevant commissions, as well as applying the same methodologies within its own performance monitoring processes, to the extent feasible. The states are the key actors in this process, since they receive funds from the federal government while also having an interest in monitoring their own performance and that of municipalities. Show Less -