Economics: Mazzucato's document for implementing Plan México is unviable in the context of the current Administration's policies
Last week, what appears to be a preliminary version of the report "State Transformation for Plan Mexico" was made public, prepared by Mariana Mazzucato and Lara Merling of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London. In principle, this presentation is intended to support Plan México, which was unveiled at the start of last year, and its central argument is that the Plan "has set the right direction, but its implementation requires greater fiscal space and a stronger state architecture."
In our view, this proposal is unviable given the institutional, regulatory, and fiscal deterioration that has accumulated in recent years. The original Plan México already displayed significant shortcomings—excessive optimism, strategies lacking budgetary support, excessive state intervention in corporate location decisions, and contradictions between the tools proposed and the goals pursued—and the proposed implementation strategy does not resolve these underlying problems.
The methodological approach faces academic scrutiny regarding the State's actual capacity to coordinate complex missions without being captured by interest groups, the democratic legitimacy of the process for selecting priority missions, and the risk that conditionalities imposed on the private sector may end up reinforcing multiple inefficiencies.
In Mexico's specific case, criticism centers on the lack of institutional capacity—compounded by the disappearance of key autonomous bodies such as Coneval, INAI, IFT, CNH, CRE, Cofece, and Hacienda's Investment Unit, as well as the weakening of the Judiciary—and on the absence of a professional bureaucracy capable of implementing these proposals. Likewise, the investment policies and decisions of the past seven years directly contradict the report's recommendations. For example, the construction of Dos Bocas and the acquisition of combined-cycle power plants stand in contrast to the decarbonization agenda.
Turning to this week's indicators, the IGAE grew 2.0% YoY in May 2026, based on seasonally adjusted figures, following growth of 2.5% the previous month. On a cumulative January–May basis, annual growth remains weak at 0.9%. It is worth noting that the components driving economic activity in May—chiefly wholesale trade, agriculture, and mining—have shown considerable volatility in recent months, including significant declines in some months of last year. This suggests the rebound may not be sustainable given the underlying sources of growth.
Separately, consumer inflation for the first half of July fell to 3.1%, the lowest in years and 8 basis points (bp) below the previous fortnight (3.18%). However, this decline was driven by annual non-core inflation that was nearly nil (0.21%). The less favorable side of the picture is core inflation, which halted its four-fortnight decline and rebounded to 3.95%.
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