文档介绍：Environmental and Resource Economics 10: 101–107, 1997. 101
c 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in herlands.
Research note
Economic Impact of the Energy Price Increase in
Mexico
NOEL D. URI1 and ROY BOYD2
1Economic Research Service, . Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, USA
2Department of Economics, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA
Accepted 29 September 1996
Introduction
In December 1995, Mexico began a process of increasing the prices of gasoline and
electricity, both produced by state monopolies. The objective of the price increases,
which are to take place over the course of the next year, is to raise revenue as well
as reduce consumption of fossil fuels (New York Times News Service 1995). The
Mexican economy is currently in dire straits for a variety of reasons including
stagnating production, relatively high real interest rates, inflation, an insolvent
banking system, and previous extensive offshore borrowing and relatively large
government expenditures to finance various economic One factor in
particular that led to the current economic problems began in 1994 when wealthy
Mexicans shifted much of their wealth out of the country, while middle-class
Mexicans spent record amounts of money, much of it on American-made consumer
goods. To modate this capital outflow, the peso normally would have dropped
in value. Instead, the Mexi