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This document presents an alternative to measure informal economic activity at the municipal level for the 2013-2020 period in Mexico. Using satellite images of nightlight and microdata from the 2019 Economic Census, the formal and informal Value Added at the municipal level is estimated using a modified version of the model proposed by Tanaka and Keola (2017). Although there are some measurements in Mexico of informal economic activity, these are not available at the municipal level or on an annual basis. The results indicate that at the national level, most of the municipalities show decreases in their levels of informal activity during the 2013-2019 period, with the North and North central regions concentrating a higher proportion of these, while in the Center the majority of the municipalities remained unchanged in the percentage of informal Value Added. In contrast, an important part of the Southern municipalities registered increases in the percentage of their informal activity during the same period.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is often identified as a driver of economic growth, although there is no consensus on this topic in the international empirical evidence regarding its effect on labor productivity. This document analyzes the effects of Foreign Direct Investment on labor productivity in the manufacturing sector in Mexico during the 2007-2015 period by using panel data and federative entities as unit of analysis. The estimates are calculated by the generalized method of moments, which allows to consider for possible endogeneity problems. The results indicate a positive and statistically significant effect of FDI as a proportion of manufacturing GDP on the growth rate of labor productivity when the latter is estimated with the Manufacturing Labor Productivity Index published by INEGI. Similar results are found if growth in labor productivity is estimated by using manufacturing GDP per worker, although the latter have less statistical power in some specifications.

Changes on consumption of Mexican households generated by unexpected shocks in income, both permanent and transitory, are analyzed during the period 2000-2016 following the methodology developed by Blundell et al. (2008), which allows to evaluate which hypothesis on the response of consumption is more in line with the empirical evidence in Mexico: permanent income, complete markets, or partial insurance. The results suggest the presence of partial insurance on consumption in the face of permanent income shocks at the national level, although results are also consistent with the permanent income hypothesis. However, differences are found between regions when replicating the same analysis. Regarding temporary shocks, the coefficient of the effect of income shocks on consumption is not statistically significant at the national or regional level, which suggests a consumption smoothing by households in the face of temporary changes in their income.

Social Accounting Matrixes are built from the four regions of the country (north, north center, center and south). In addition, it is also presented the model of accounting multipliers to identify structural differences of the regions, and the analyses of redistributive effects (sectoral recomposition) involving interdependence among institutions when exogenous income injections are given to households, which are endogenously derived by changes in relative income shares. The main results suggest the existence of significant regional differences in income-spending patterns. The southern region is characterized by the largest expansion in income when their households and self-employed workers receive an exogenous injection of income. Similarly, it is in the southern region where the highest redistributive income is observed; followed by the northern and the central regions.

Based on satellite photos of night light from NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense, and using the methodology proposed by Henderson, Storeygard and Weil (2012), this paper measures the economic growth of the main 15 beach tourist areas in Mexico for the period from 1993 to 2017. This methodology opens a new series of opportunities to measure economic activity, by providing new tools for measurement at the regional level, regardless of administrative boundaries.

This work analyzes whether monetary policy in advanced economies has differentiated effects on portfolio flows towards emerging economies coming from the US, the Euro Area and the UK. The results show the following: First, portfolio flows' response to US monetary policy events is vastly homogeneous across regions, whilst the reaction to Euro Area or UK polices are more diverse. Second, US policies have a bigger effect on portfolio flows from each of the selected advanced economies. Third, the magnitude of investors' responses is stronger towards Emerging Europe and Latin America than to Emerging Asia. These results could be useful for policymakers in emerging economies as a benchmark to anticipate differentiated effects in portfolio flows caused by monetary policy in advanced economies.

While typically socioeconomically disadvantaged, Mexican migrants in the United States tend to have better health outcomes than non-Hispanic Whites. This phenomenon is known as the Hispanic Health Paradox. Using data from Mexico and the United States, we examine several health outcomes for non-Hispanic Whites and Mexicans in the United States and in Mexico and employ Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions to help explain the paradox. We find evidence that selectivity is playing a significant role in the relatively healthy status of Mexican migrants in the United States. More importantly, there is evidence that health selectivity is a complex process and its effects typically do not work the same way for different health conditions and across genders. We also find evidence that some of migrants' health advantages are lost as they spend more time in the United States.

We construct a panel data at the state level in Mexico for the years 2006, 2008 and 2011 in order to investigate the impact that entry deregulation efforts have on the cost of opening new businesses in Mexico, where this cost is taken from the Doing Business in Mexico report of the World Bank. Using a model that the controls for the financial strength of the states, market profitability, regional fixed effects, and considering endogenous effects, we find that the measures of entry deregulation are strongly associated with a reduction in the cost of opening a new business.

A partir de una matriz de contabilidad social para México se cuantifican los efectos de las remesas internacionales sobre la generación y distribución de la renta en México. Los principales resultados indican que ante un incremento unitario en las remesas, los tres deciles más ricos de ingreso son los que absorberían la mayor parte del ingreso transferido y expandido vía el flujo circular de la renta; mientras que, en términos relativos, todos los deciles de ingreso, con excepción del decil más rico, mejorarían su participación porcentual en la distribución de la renta.