Abstract:
Between 1934 and 2018, two parties held the office of the President of Mexico. The Office of the President was held by the Revolutionary Party from the December 1, 1934 election until November 30, 2000, and then again from December 1, 2012 through November 30, 2018. The National Action Party lead the Mexican government from December 1, 2000 through November 30, 2012. Since political party platforms differ, this paper examines whether the political affiliation of the President influenced the relationship between the real GDP growth rate and the change of the unemployment rate for Mexico. The study uses data from Quarter 1 1993 through Quarter 4 2018, collected from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The results show that despite different political party platforms, the long-run economic growth rate for Mexico was not significantly different for the two political party time periods. The long-run growth rate was 2.3%. The results also show a statistically significant negative relationship between the real GDP growth rate and the change of the unemployment rate for Mexico. A 1% increase of the unemployment rate leads to a 2.53% decrease of the growth rate. The relationship was not significantly different for the two political party time periods.