By Santiago Levy

My hope is that this book will appeal to all those interested in Mexico’s development. With that purpose in mind, I tried to write a book with a minimum of specialized language and technical terms, so it could be read by many. I hope academic economists find that the central elements of the narrative are sufficiently supported by empirical evidence, even if not all of them are treated with the technical rigor that they would like to see. For them, the value of the book resides in putting together various pieces of research into what I believe is a consistent and coherent story that answers a key development question: Why has a country that has done so many things right failed to grow fast?

Ideally, the book will also appeal to those interested in development beyond Mexico. While there is some necessary institutional detail that is specific to this country, the core issues discussed here—growth, productivity, informality, misallocation, and human capital—are also center stage in other Latin American countries (and beyond). There are intense debates on these issues among economists and policymakers. This book’s value-added in this debate is, on one hand, the use of what by Latin American standards is an extremely rich and detailed database of firms, and, on the other, a methodological approach that tries to bring clarity by separating the “what is going on” from “why what is going on is occurring.” Of course, it is the reader who will judge the extent to which the effort has been successful.

Source IADB