ABSTRACT
Mexican economic development has been closely connected to the foreign sector through most of its history. This chapter examines historical perspective the problems that the Mexican economy faces today, with special emphasis on the relevance of the foreign sector. It shows that in different forms and at different times, the foreign sector has strongly influenced both domestic business cycles and the model of industrial development that has been followed. Although other sectors like agriculture and finance undoubtedly help explain overall economic growth, the chapter focuses on the foreign sector because it somehow affects all the others and to some extent determines their behavior. Some economic historians have recently contended that such developments also had an economic cause. John Coatsworth has forcefully argued that backward forms of economic organization and the lack of a cheap means of transportation hindered economic growth.
