3/31/2006

Remittances to Mexico Exceed $20 Billion

I found an interesting article relating to immigration. The author states, “In 2005, Mexicans in the United States remitted some $20 billion home. That's 3% of Mexico's entire national income.” The article says that remittances have surpassed that of oil and tourism for Mexico. The author also says that President Bush should not concede to Vicente Fox’s pressures of keeping the flood gates open. Rather Mexico should work on fixing itself and not relying on the US. What are all your thoughts?

3 comments:

Dr. Tufte said...

I wonder whether those figures for oil, tourism, and remittances are all measured the same way.

Even so, what's wrong with exporting labor? When Mexico exports oil, isn't a lot of the price of oil the price of labor to produce it? The only difference is that the labor didn't need to move north. With tourism, it is even more exaggerated, since almost all the value added is in personal service (labor).

More generally, I think that Mexico should clean up its problems (although I know this is a process that will take decades if not generations). We have an immigration problem because there is such a gradient of well-being between north and south. We can make it go away by making the U.S. poorer, or Mexico richer. I like the latter one better.

Matthew said...

Dr. Tufte said that in order to decrease immigration from Mexico, we need to make the U.S. poorer or Mexico richer. I agree with that statement. I think that Mexicans would prefer to live with their families in their home country. The reason they come to the U.S. is because Mexico is not fulfilling their needs and they see the better life in America. If Mexico's economic, working, and living conditions were better, immigration would decrease. Maybe instead of spending so much money on fences and the ICE, we should invest more into Mexico's economy.

Dr. Tufte said...

We won't invest more in Mexico until there is a better chance of getting our money out.

If the Mexican government was interested in stemming emmigration, they'd build better institutions to get foreigners to invest there.