La serie de Documentos de Investigación del Banco de México divulga resultados preliminares de trabajos de investigación económica realizados en el Banco de México con la finalidad de propiciar el intercambio y debate de ideas. El contenido de los Documentos de Investigación, así como las conclusiones que de ellos se derivan, son responsabilidad exclusiva de los autores y no reflejan necesariamente las del Banco de México.Abstract: I develop and estimate a model of export dynamics featuring self-discovery that accounts well for new exporter dynamics: (a) continuation rates that are increasing with tenure, and (b) growth rates of export sales that are decreasing with tenure. The option value generated by the acquisition of more information is key to understanding firm dynamics as the discovery stage lasts as long as this option value is positive. I use the model to study the impact of export promotion policies that temporarily subsidize the fixed costs of exporting. These policies can result in long-lived increases in aggregate trade, but their effectiveness crucially depends on the speed of learning.Resumen: Desarrollo y estimo un modelo de la dinámica de exportación basado en el autodescubrimiento que explica bien la dinámica de los nuevos exportadores: (a) la tasa de continuación es creciente con respecto a la experiencia y (b) la tasa de crecimiento de las ventas de exportación es decreciente con respecto a la experiencia. El valor de opción generado por la adquisición de mayor información es clave para entender la dinámica de las empresas, ya que la etapa de descubrimiento dura tanto tiempo como este valor de opción sea positivo. Uso el modelo para estudiar el impacto de políticas de promoción a las exportaciones que temporalmente subsidian los costos fijos de exportar. Estas políticas pueden resultar en incrementos duraderos en el comercio agregado, pero su efectividad depende crucialmente de la velocidad del aprendizaje.

This paper investigates whether "trade policy uncertainty" (TPU), even absent changes in actual policy, may have an adverse effect on foreign direct investment. The paper focuses on the case of Mexico, where we observe a plausibly sharp and exogenous increase in TPU vis-à-vis a large trading partner beginning in the second half of 2016. To test this hypothesis, we use data from Google Trends to construct a TPU index and argue that this index adequately captures both time series and cross-sectional variation in TPU across states in Mexico. We exploit this variation to identify the effect of increased uncertainty on FDI flows. We find that the increase in TPU was associated with a negative effect on FDI inflows, with the effect being driven by the negative impact that TPU had on FDI in export oriented states.

This article combines data on trade flows with a novel construction of the distribution of skill in the population, based on the results from the International Adult Literacy Survey of the OECD, to evaluate the empirical importance of the distribution of talent as a determinant of the sectoral pattern of trade. It is found that both the mean and standard deviation of the distribution of skills are significant determinants of the pattern of trade. According to the results, crosscountry differences in the distribution of skills explain more of the sectoral pattern of trade than differences in capital stocks and differences in indicators of a country's institutional framework.

Based on the methodology proposed by Frey and Osborne (2017), we use their estimates for the probability of automation of occupations together with household survey data on the occupational distribution of employment to provide a risk assessment for the threat that automation may pose to the Mexican labor market. We find that almost two thirds of total employment is at high risk of automation; slightly more than half if we only consider employment in the formal sector. We argue that, while these estimates provide a useful benchmark to start thinking about the impact that automation may have on the labor market, they should be interpreted with care as they are solely based on the technical feasibility to automate and do not reflect the economic incentives, or other factors such as the accumulation of human capital through education, to adopt automation technologies.

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