Protectionism, free trade and preferential trade: the Mexican experience 1970-2005

This paper is an analysis of trade policies in Mexico. A structural analysis of theMexican economy's performance in three successive but different periods, regardingtrade policies for the last thirty-five years is presented. Results are confronted with expectations from various trade policies. There are two main conclusions: first those extreme free-trade policies have not been good for economic stability, growth and employment creation in Mexico, and second, that specialization in production andtrade occurs in non labor-intensive sectors in Mexico, in opposition to what is expected according to the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem, under free trade conditions.