Mexico

Yglesias has been pushing the idea that Mexico is growing faster than Brazil. Is the implication that Clinton's NAFTA worked?

Dean Baker writes:

The Post's prohibition of honest discussion of Mexico's economy is apparently continuing. In a piece on Mexico's elections today, the Post told readers:

"But annual growth during Calderon’s six years has averaged a middling 2 percent."

This statement gives a whole new meaning to word "middling." If we turn to the IMF's data and look at per capita GDP growth in the years 2006-2011, we find that on average Mexico's per capital GDP shrank by 0.1 percent annually over this period. This is not middling; this performance places Mexico dead last among Latin American countries (several countries in the Caribbean did worse.)

For some reference points, per capita growth in Argentina averaged 5.8 percent, Bolivia 2.8 percent, Brazil 3.1 percent, Ecuador 2.6 percent, and Peru 5.6 percent. There is nothing middling about Mexico's economic performance over this period; it was bad.