Financial Decision-Making in Mexico

The Mexican crisis was a seminal event in the history of emerging markets and Weintraub captures that moment." --Riordan Roett, Director, Western Hemisphere Program, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University

Mexico's economic meltdown of 1994-1995 has been described as the first financial crisis of the twenty-first-century because of the speed with which the repercussions--spanned the globe. examines why able economic managers in Mexico, based on the contemporaneous information in their possession, made the decisions they did, with such disastrous consequences. Weintraub's conclusion is that decision-making was heavily influenced by the cultural milieu in Mexico, which involved secrecy of key data and unwillingness to entertain dissenting opinions whether from Mexicans or outsiders. Weintraub provides an analysis of the economic and political events that took place in Mexico, the decisions made to deal with these events, and the reactions of international financial actors outside of Mexico, thus providing the first integrated analysis of the Mexican market crash.