Keywords: Mexico, NAFTA, limited technological capabilities

“Assessing the Role of the Export Sector in Mexican Economic Development, 1965-2014”

A central argument behind the ongoing renegotiation of NAFTA is that Mexico became a top manufacturing exporter by monopolizing most benefits within the agreement. This dissertation claims that those benefits, while positive, are still far from letting Mexico join the highly industrialized world. Employment, foreign investment and exports increased at the expense of limiting technological capabilities, low use of domestic resources and high use of low-qualified labor. Thus, despite becoming a top exporter, Mexico has failed to capture the benefits of innovation in manufacturing, which (in highly a globalized world) are monopolized by other developed and more competitive emerging economies.