Mexico’s economy has remained stable despite having lackluster growth as the country approaches a presidential election in June 2024. Mexico's workers have benefited from wage increases and low unemployment rates, and the economy could experience increased growth from the tailwinds of nearshoring. However, the country still faces roadblocks such as ensuring a reliable energy supply, maintaining monetary and fiscal sustainability, and addressing financial fragilities stemming from the state oil company, PEMEX. Additionally, security concerns continue to undermine the country's social fabric and economic development. With these issues in mind, the Georgetown Americas Institute is pleased to host a virtual panel on Mexico’s current macroeconomic outlook featuring Raúl Feliz of Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, GAI Resident Fellow Nora Lustig of Tulane University, and Alejandro Werner, GAI founding director.
Featuring
Raúl Anibal Feliz is a professor at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), where he specializes in macroeconomics and finance. He founded and led the journal Economía Mexicana and has been part of editorial boards for specialized journals. In the private sector, Feliz leads R. A. Feliz and Associates, which focuses on consultancy in Mexican economics and finance. His clients have included: INTERCAM, the Dominican Republic Reserve Bank, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Western German Provincial Bank, BNP Paribas in France, the Ministry of Housing of the Dominican Republic, Barclays in the United Kingdom, Finaccess Mexico, CIBanco Mexico, Alpha Patrimonial Mexico, Prudential Mexico, Principal Financial Mexico, Banco Azteca, HSBC Mexico, the Investment Unit of the Mexican Social Security Institute, Afore Coppel, and the Mexican Ministry of Tourism. Additionally, Feliz serves as a lead economist for the Somoza Cortina and Associates stock exchange and Bancrecer, and he was an independent advisor for the Mexican Derivatives Exchange (MEXDER).
Nora Lustig is a resident fellow with the Georgetown Americas Institute and Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics at Tulane University, where she also founded and directs the Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQ). Additionally, she is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Center for Global Development, and the Inter-American Dialogue. Lustig’s research focuses on economic development, inequality, and social policies, particularly in Latin America. She is the editor of Commitment to Equity Handbook: Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty (2018), a guide to assessing the impact of taxation and social spending on inequality and poverty in developing countries. Lustig is a founding member and president emeritus of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) and was a co-director of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000, Attacking Poverty. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Inequality and is a member of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality’s Executive Council. Lustig served on the Atkinson Commission on Poverty, the High-Level Group on Measuring Economic Performance and Social Progress, and the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance. She received her doctorate in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Alejandro Werner is the founding director of the Georgetown Americas Institute and a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. He recently completed almost nine years as director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that appointment, he was undersecretary of finance and public credit in Mexico’s Finance Ministry and held several positions in that ministry and the Central Bank. He also taught at leading universities in Mexico, Spain, and the United States. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in economics from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).