ABSTRACT
The reform to the legal status of Banco de Mexico (BdeM) show how the state's strategy to rebuild the bases of popular support for the regime was shaped by the new international consensus on economic policy and the Mexican political institutions. The distinction between legal and real autonomy helps to frame the discussion of the reform to the legal status of BdeM. Since the foundation of BdeM in 1925, the bank's real autonomy has been determined by the state's responses to domestic problems mediated by the prevailing conditions in the international financial markets. The Mexican stabilisation programme was based on a system of Pacts in which the state called leaders from business and labour corporatist organisations to control price and wage increases. It was the state advised by BdeM who designed and implemented this stabilisation programme. Exchange rate policy is under state control but BdeM is responsible for operating and regulating the exchange market.
