The trade balance effects of U.S. foreign direct investment in Mexico

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico on U.S. exports to and imports from Mexico. The rise of intrafirm exports and imports following U.S. FDI in Mexico suggests that FDI affects trade flows. Empirical estimation proceeds with tests for stationarity and cointegration. The finding of cointegration among the variables leads to estimation of the hypothesized relationships with a vector error-correction model. Impulse response functions and variance decomposition reveal that FDI leads to increased exports and imports during the time period considered.