acting on these expectations, forced the hand of the
government, which let the peso float until it had lost
over half its value. Instability spread across other
countries in the so-called Tequila Crisis. By mid-1996,
the worst had passed, and Mexico proved immune to
the crises that rocked Brazil, Turkey, and especially
Argentina in the first years of the twenty-first century.
Although the North American Free Trade Agreement
and the benefits of bordering the world’s largest economy
conferred special advantages on Mexico, GDP
growth remained sluggish, averaging about 1.5% per
capita for the 1990–2008 period. And even adjusted
for purchasing power parity, incomes remained just
29% of those in the United States. And Mexico was
more negatively affected by the global financial crisis
than most developing countries, with a drop in
real GDP of about 6.5% in 2009.