Rogelio Varela Llamas

Synchronization of Economic Activity between Mexico and the US: What are the Causes?

Using data on manufacturing production for the entire industry and 8 of its 9 divisions, we find little evidence of synchronization between manufacturing output in Mexico and the US. Hence, it is unlikely that the synchronization of the business cycles of these two countries emerged as the result of the synchronization of economic activity in the manufacturing industry, as previous studies have suggested. Given these results, we propose two alternatives for explaining business cycles synchronization: the dynamics of the gross domestic product

Labor Informality in Mexico: An Indicator Analysis

This chapter presents an analysis of labor informality in Mexico. It provides a discussion of different theoretical approaches explaining the phenomenon and performs an empirical exercise. The exercise includes a description of various labor market indicators and the estimation of a logistic equation. For the latter it considers information from the National Occupational and Employment Survey (ENOE) for the first quarter of 2015. The results suggest that the probability of becoming an informal worker decreases as individuals acquire more education or live in urban areas. Women are more likely to join the informal labor market relative to men. Searching for additional employment also increases the probability of entering informality.