This paper examines the processes used
in the United States and Mexico to assess the economic costs
and benefits of environmental improvement, the kinds of
information... Show More +
obtained from these procedures, and the
additional knowledge that is needed about both elements to
improve understanding of the problems and prospects of
advancing a green growth agenda. Because environmental and
other development needs are large and resources are limited,
it is important to choose the best projects, those with the
highest returns on both public investments and private
resources harnessed by regulation. The United States is
well-established as a world leader in the use of
quantitative methods to evaluate options for environmental
regulation and policy. Mexico represents a case where a
developing country has made clear advances in reforming its
economy and in introducing transparency in its regulatory
processes for environmental and other policy areas. Show Less -
Type: Policy Research Working Paper
Report#: WPS6242
Date: October 1, 2012
Author:
Velez-Lopez. Daniel ;
Morgenstern, Richard ;
Harrington, Winston
The Mexico City Metropolitan Area has
been suffering severely from transportation externalities
such as accidents, air pollution, and traffic congestion.
This study... Show More +
examines pricing instruments to reduce these
externalities using an analytical and numerical model. The
study shows that the optimal levels of a gasoline tax and a
congestion toll on automobiles could generate social
benefits, measured in terms of welfare gain, of US$132 and
US$109 per capita, respectively, through the reduction of
externalities. The largest component of the welfare gains
comes from reduced congestion, followed by local air
pollution reduction. The optimal toll and tax would,
however, double the cost of driving and could be politically
sensitive. Still, more than half of those welfare gains
could be obtained through a more modest tax or toll,
equivalent to $1 per gallon of gasoline. The welfare gains
from reforming the pricing of public transportation are
small relative to those from reforming the taxation of
automobiles. Although the choice among travel modes depends
on specific circumstances, in the absence of road travel
pricing that accounts for externalities, there will be
potential for higher investment in roads relative to mass
transit. Given the rapidly increasing demand for
transportation infrastructure in Mexico City, careful
efforts should be made to include the full social costs of
travel in evaluating alternative infrastructure investments. Show Less -
Type: Policy Research Working Paper
Report#: WPS5071
Date: October 1, 2009
Author:
Parry, Ian W.H. ;
Timilsina, Govinda R.
This paper uses a case study approach to
explore the effects of NAFTA and GATT membership on
innovation and trade in the Mexican soaps, detergents, and
surfactants (SDS)... Show More +
industry. Several basic findings emerge.
First, the most fundamental effect of the NAFTA and the GATT
on the SDS industry was to help induce Wal-Mart to enter
Mexico. Once there, Walmex fundamentally changed the retail
sector, forcing SDS firms to cut their profit margins and
innovate. Those unable to respond to this new environment
tended to lose market share and, in some cases, disappear
altogether. Second, partly in response to Walmex, many
Mexican producers logged impressive efficiency gains during
the previous decade. These gains came both from
labor-shedding and from innovation, which in turn was fueled
by innovative input suppliers and by multinationals bringing
new products and processes from their headquarters to
Mexico. Finally, although Mexican detergent exports captured
an increasing share of the U.S. detergent market over the
past decade, Mexican sales in the U.S. were inhibited by a
combination of excessive shipping delays at the border and
artificially high input prices (due to Mexican protection of
domestic caustic soda suppliers). They were also held back
by the major re-tooling costs that Mexican producers would
have had to incur to establish brand recognition among
non-Latin consumers and to comply with zero phosphate laws
in many regions of the U.S. Show Less -
Type: Policy Research Working Paper
Report#: WPS3999
Date: August 1, 2006
Author:
Javorcik, Beata ;
Tybout, James ;
Keller, Wolfgang
Improved competitiveness is at the top
of the agenda for Mexico as it moves to leverage economic
progress made over the past decade. The authors evaluate the
impact... Show More +
of changes in trade facilitation measures on trade
for main industrial sectors in Mexico. They use four
indicators of trade facilitation: port efficiency, customs
environment, regulatory environment, and e-commerce use by
business (as a proxy for service sector infrastructure). The
authors use gravity model results to consider how much trade
among countries might be increased under various scenarios
of improved trade facilitation. They follow a simulation
strategy that uses a formula to design a unique program of
reform for each country in the sample, and apply it to the
case of Mexico. The formula brings the below-average
countries in the group half-way to the average for the
entire set of countries. After simulating these improvements
in trade facilitation in all four areas, the authors find
that the total increase in trade flow in manufacturing goods
is estimated to be $348.2 billion (about 7.4 percent of
total world trade). The analysis indicates that Mexico has a
large scope for trade promotion from trade facilitation
reform: overall increments from domestic reforms are
expected to be on the order of $31.8 billion, equivalent to
22.4 percent of total Mexican manufacturing exports for
2000-03. On the imports side, these figures are $17.1
billion and 11.2 percent, respectively. In total exports as
well as in textiles, increases in exports result from
improvements in port efficiency and the regulatory
environment (that is, the perception of corruption). In
turn, exports of transport equipment are expected to get a
greater increment from improvements in port efficiency,
whereas exports of food and machinery seem to be more
related to improvements in the regulatory environment. On
the imports side, Mexican improvements in port efficiency
appear to be the most important factor, although for imports
of transport equipment improvements in service sector
infrastructure are also of relative importance. Show Less -
Type: Policy Research Working Paper
Report#: WPS3953
Date: June 1, 2006
Author:
Wilson, John S. ;
Mejia, Alejandro ;
Soloaga, Isidro
The degree of mobility in incomes is
often seen as an important measure of the equality of
opportunity in a society and of the flexibility and freedom
of its labor market.... Show More +
But estimation of mobility using panel
data is biased by the presence of measurement error and
non-random attrition from the panel. This paper shows that
dynamic pseudo-panel methods can be used to consistently
estimate measures of absolute and conditional mobility in
the presence of non-classical measurement errors. These
methods are applied to data on earnings from a Mexican
quarterly rotating panel. Absolute mobility in earnings is
found to be very low in Mexico, suggesting that the high
level of inequality found in the cross-section will persist
over time. However, the paper finds conditional mobility to
be high, so that households are able to recover quickly from
earnings shocks. These findings suggest a role for policies
which address underlying inequalities in earnings opportunities. Show Less -
Type: Policy Research Working Paper
Report#: WPS3745
Date: October 1, 2005
Author:
Antman, Francisca ;
McKenzie, David J.
Mexico City has for years experienced
high levels of ozone and particulate air pollution. In
1995-99 the entire population of the Mexico City
metropolitan area was exposed... Show More +
to annual average
concentrations of fine particulate pollution (particulates
with a diameter of less than 10 micrometers, or PM10)
exceeding 50 micrograms per cubic meter, the annual average
standard in both Mexico and the United States. Two million
people were exposed to annual average PM10 levels of more
than 75 micrograms per cubic meter. The daily maximum
one-hour ozone standard was exceeded at least 300 days a
year. The Mexico Air Quality Management Team documents
population-weighted exposures to ozone and PM10 between 1995
and 1999, project exposures in 2010, and computes the value
of four scenarios for 2010: A 10 percent reduction in PM10
and ozone. A 20 percent reduction in PM10 and ozone.
Achievement of ambient air quality standards across the
metropolitan area. A 68 percent reduction in ozone and a 47
percent reduction in PM10 across the metropolitan area. The
authors calculate the health benefits of reducing ozone and
PM10 for each scenario using dose-response functions from
the peer-reviewed literature. They value cases of morbidity
and premature mortality avoided using three approaches: Cost
of illness and forgone earnings only (low estimate). Cost of
illness, forgone earnings, and willingness to pay for
avoided morbidity (central case estimate). Cost of illness,
forgone earnings, willingness to pay for avoided morbidity,
and willingness to pay for avoided mortality (high
estimate). The results suggest that the benefits of a 10
percent reduction in ozone and PM10 in 2010 are about $760
million (in 1999 U.S. dollars) annually in the central case.
The benefits of a 20 percent reduction in ozone and PM10 are
about $1.49 billion annually. In each case the benefits of
reducing ozone amount to about 15 percent of the total
benefits. By estimating the magnitude of the benefits from
air pollution control, the authors provide motivation for
examining specific policies that could achieve the air
pollution reductions that they value. They also provide unit
values for the benefits from reductions in ambient air
pollution (for example, per microgram of PM10) that could be
used as inputs into a full cost-benefit analysis of air
pollution control strategies. Show Less -
Type: Policy Research Working Paper
Report#: WPS2785
Date: February 28, 2002
Author:
Cesar, Herman ;
Borja-Aburto, Victor H. ;
Dorland, Kees ;
Munoz Cruz, Roberto ;
Brander, Luke ;
Cropper, Maureen ;
Gonzalez Marinez, Ana Citlalic ;
Olaiz-Fernandez, Gustavo ;
Martinez Bolivar, Ana Patricia ;
Olsthoorn, Xander ;
Rosales-Castillo, Alberto ;
Soto Montes de Oca, Gloria ;
Torres-Meza, Victor ;
Uribe Ceron, Ricardo ;
Van Beukering, Pieter ;
Vega Lopez, Eduardo ;
Nino Zarazua, Max Magin ;
Nino Zarazua,Miguel Angel ;
Vergara, Walter
The authors show how relatively standard
methodologies can help to measure the efficiency gains from
reforming the organization of port infrastructure, how those
measures... Show More +
can be used to promote competition between ports,
and how competition can be built into an incentive-driven
regulatory regime. As illustration, they use a case study of
port reform in mexico in 1993, the first efficiency analysis
of port restructuring in a developing country. Their
analysis, which covers 1996-99 and relies on a stochastic
production frontier, shows that overall, Mexico has achieved
annual efficiency gains of 6-8 percent in the use of port
infrastructure since assigning its management to
independent, decentralized operators. Changes in relative
performance ratings are revealing. They identify consistent
sets of leaders and laggards, including some that would not
have been identified by partial productivity indicators
commonly used in the sector. The authors' main
conclusions: 1) Reforms have significantly improved average
port performance. 2) The analytically sound performance
rankings allowed by the port-specific efficiency measures
can help to promote yardstick competition in the sector.
These rankings are superior to those that would emerge from
use of partial productivity indicators. They account for the
joint effects of all inputs on outputs--which is crucial,
because it avoids the risk of inconsistent rankings based on
different partial indicators, arbitrarily chosen. Developing
the database method to measure efficiency in countries with
no strong tradition of database development is an enormous
task--especially in transport sectors, where the tradition
of generating databases useful to policymakers is in its
infancy. The most immediate effect of this exercise was to
reveal the poverty of the database in the Mexican port
sector and the need for regulators to invest in its development. Show Less -
Type: Policy Research Working Paper
Report#: WPS2637
Date: July 31, 2001
Author:
Estache, Antonio ;
Gonzalez, Marianela ;
Trujillo, Lourdes
In November 1989, Mexico City's
administration imposed a regulation banning each car from
driving on a specific day of the week. The regulation has
been both popular... Show More +
and controversial. Some feel that it is a
reasonable concession aimed at alleviating congestion and
pollution problems. Others feel it is both inefficient and
unfair: inefficient in the way most rationing systems are
inefficent, and unfair in that it is costly to some and
easily avoided or accommodated by others. Some feel that it
may also be so inefficient that it is counterproductive. The
authors found evidence to support that view. Many
households bought an additional car to get additional
driving permits, and the amount of driving increased.
Greater use of old cars and increased weekend driving may
have contributed to the disappointing results of
Mexico's one-day ban on driving: high welfare costs and
none of the intended benefits. Show Less -
Type: Policy Research Working Paper
Report#: WPS1554
Date: December 31, 1995
Author:
Eskeland, Gunnar S. ;
Feyzioglu, Tarhan
