This paper analyzes the performance of Mexican manufacturing firms following trade
liberalization within a very specific institutional setting: The North American Free-Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). We compare plants' productivity growth and patterns of job creation
and destruction across their relative degree of integration into foreign product markets, their
access to technology, and behavior with respect to research and development. Our findings
show that access to imported inputs is the more significant vehicle for productivity enhancing
effects of trade openness. Investment in technology is, by far, most strongly correlated with
plant productivity. Like productivity, job turnover at firm level is strongly influenced by the
degree of integration in international markets, import competition, and R&D behavior.