OECD Economic surveys: Mexico 2009 Coll. ECONOMIE

Despite improved macroeconomic fundamentals, this 2009 edition of OECD's periodic survey of the Mexican economy finds that Mexico is being hard hit by the financial crisis and world economic downturn. In addition to a chapter examining how to overcome the crisis, this edition also includes chapters on managing the oil economy, achieving higher performance in health and education, and structural reforms to boost long term growth.

Chapter 1. Overcoming the Financial Crisis and the Macroeconomic Downturn. The macroeconomic outlook is worsening rapidly. A mild financial crisis but a severe downturn of output. The near term outlook remains dim. Adverse labour market impact. The macroeconomic policy mix is getting more coherent. Chapter 2. Managing the Oil Economy - Can Mexico Do It Better? Mexico's challenges with oil revenues. Reforming the fiscal rules. Preparing for a world with less oil resources. An expedite and adequate implementation of the reform of Pemex is needed to improve the efficiency of the oil economy and maximize oil income. Additional reform should be considered if necessary. Concluding remarks. Chapter 3. Achieving Higher Performance: Enhancing Spending Efficiency in Health and Education. Introduction. Health spending. What can be done to improve efficiency in the Mexican health system? Efficiency of spending on primary and secondary education. What can be done to improve the efficiency of the education system? Concluding remarks. Annex 3.A1. Details on data envelopment analysis (DEA). Chapter 4. Pedal to the Metal: Structural Reforms to Boost Long-Term Growth and Spur Recovery from the Crisis. Mexico's growth performance compared - some salient facts. Sources of differences in living standards and growth. Sectoral labour productivity and shift-share analysis. Mexico's convergence with high-income countries has been slow. What do models tell about factors that hold back Mexico's growth rate? Where to from here? Policies priorities for lifting growth further. Concluding remarks. Annex 4.A1. Progress in structural reform. Annex 4.A2. Data and methodology. Annex 4.A3. More details on the models used