ONE of the main reasons for the landslide victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-winger, in this month’s presidential election in Mexico was the country’s mediocre economy. Between 1995 and 2015 real GDP per person increased by an annual average of 1.2%, less than in any Latin American country except Venezuela (see chart). Take into account the swelling labour force, and Mexico looks even worse: GDP per worker expanded by just 0.4% a year, while total factor productivity (a measure of the economy’s efficiency) barely grew. What makes this puzzling is that Mexico has embraced economic orthodoxy: sound monetary and fiscal policy, open trade, investment in education and, more recently, improved competition policy.
