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Mexican fiscal data are widely taken from Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática (National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Informatics ). INEGI’s Estadísticas Históricas de México (Historical Statistics of Mexico) uses the best and most basic source, the Finance Ministry’s Cuenta de la Hacienda Pública Federal (Federal Budget), published in yearly volumes and not available outside of the Finance Ministry’s own libraries. For example, Cárdenas 1994, Table A.25, and Cárdenas 1996, Table 1.7, use Estadísticas Históricas. Unfortunately, the way Estadísticas Históricas—and many other secondary sources—present fiscal data poses serious problems. For one thing, Estadísticas Históricas data prior to 1980 often treat borrowing as part of revenue and include it in data on revenue (see INEGI 1994, Table 17.6, pages 760–761; also Graphics 17.6a and 17.6b). Obviously, if borrowing is included in revenue, there is no such thing as a deficit or surplus (except to the extent that the government overborrows or under-borrows in any year). This problem can be corrected easily: Estadísticas Históricas gives the amount of borrowing, so one can net it out to obtain real revenue, as I have done. The other major problem—found in much Mexican fiscal data from secondary sources as well as Estadísticas Históricas and rarely identified—is harder to correct: amortization is included as well as interest in debt payments. Amortization is not real spending. For example, suppose a government raises $100 billion in revenue and spends $105 billion by borrowing $5 billion. Its total spending is obviously $105 billion. Now suppose everything is the same but the government has $15 billion worth of short-term debt to pay off and renew during the course of the year (many Mexican government 28-day bonds must be constantly paid off and renewed). Now the government still raises $100 billion in revenue and spends $105 billion, but it borrows $20 billion and amortizes, or pays off, $15 billion worth of principal. Its real spending is still obviously $105 billion, but if amortization is included, the data indicate that it spends $120 billion. Typically , on the order of 15 percent of Mexican government spending, even during the 1960s, actually was amortization of debt, and the portion varied considerably from year to year. Budget data that include amortization, properly called “gasto bruto,” or gross spending, but often not properly labeled, is therefore erratic and very problematic. Amortization is also often included in state enterprise spending , where it can be particularly hard to detect or weed out. Appendix A mexican fiscal data The best long-term series of fiscal data, going back to 1965, excluding amortization , and properly called “gasto neto,” or net spending, is found in the appendices to the Carlos Salinas Informes de Gobierno. Unfortunately, the Zedillo administration did not continue that long-term data series. In other series, fiscal data from the situación financiera, financial condition, of the federal government, Mexico City, and state enterprises typically exclude amortization, or indicate it and net it out, but unfortunately this type of data usually only gives current spending and the capital-spending deficit, not total spending. And the situación financiera is not provided at all in Estadísticas Históricas. Unless one goes to the Finance Ministry for data before 1965, one is therefore stuck with Estadísticas Históricas and other equally problematic sources such as Nacional Financiera, Economía Mexicana en Cifras (Mexican Economy in Figures ), where amortization is not indicated and so cannot be netted out. Izquierdo 1995, Tables VII.4 and VII.5, does give amortization figures separately for the years he covers, 1959–70. He was an important economic advisor to the Finance Ministry during much of that period and thus a reliable source. INEGI, Informaci ón sobre gasto público, 1970–1980 (Information on Public Spending, 1970–1980), Table 1.6, p. 5, also details amortization as a portion of public sector spending for the decade of the 1970s. Correcting data from Estadísticas Históricas by netting out amortization given by either of these sources gives essentially the same figures as the Salinas Informes for 1965 on. I have always deducted borrowing from revenue figures, but because I do not have data on amortization before 1959, I have left it in total spending, as everyone else does. Thus, data on total spending and the total deficit for...

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