Schumpeter: The global Mexican

摘要

When Jorge Castaneda (later Mexico's foreign minister) was a boy, a typical family holiday was to drive to Texas. "[O]ne of the main purposes of the journey was to purchase fayuca: contraband electronics, food, clothes [and] gadgets of all sorts." In their closed domestic market, Mexicans had few choices besides "obsolete TV sets...rancid peanut butter [and] highly flammable Terlenka windbreakers". In the United States, they could buy good stuff cheaply. To smuggle it home, they would fill the car with hidden goodies, leaving a small TV ostentatiously visible. The customs officer would confiscate the TV and miss the rest.