Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 07/2026
In the first quarter of 2026, the decline in employment among Mexican immigrant workers—which had begun in late 2024—accelerated. By the end of the first quarter of 2026, annual declines of more than 300,000 Mexican workers had been recorded in the construction sector, nearly 230,000 jobs in professional and administrative services, and about 90,000 jobs in the manufacturing industry.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 06/2026
The report quantifies the average wages earned in the United States by Mexican workers, including both those born in the U.S. to Mexican parents and immigrants. The wage figures are broken down by gender, full-time and part-time employment, and, in the case of immigrants, whether they hold U.S. citizenship. The report also presents figures on the total payroll or labor income of these workers and compares them to Mexico’s GDP.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 05/2026
This article focuses on estimating the number of hours worked and paid per week by Mexican workers in the United States in 2025, considering both U.S.-born individuals of Mexican origin and Mexican immigrants, and breaking down the data by gender, immigration status, and full-time versus part-time employment. It also compares these working hours with those of the total U.S. labor force and with those of the immigrant population. For Mexican immigrants, weekly working hours are also presented by industry and by gender.
The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) and the Financial Stability Institute (FSI) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) held the Virtual Policy Implementation Meeting: The NBFI Sector – Financial Stability Implications on March 3–4, 2026. The agenda, available here, shows that the discussions focused on the growth of non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI), its implications for financial stability, the links between NBFIs and the banking sector, potential sources of systemic risk, current supervisory and monitoring practices, and experiences from different jurisdictions.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 04/2026
This article focuses on measuring the level of employment among Mexican workers in the United States. In 2025, this employment amounted to 19 million people and was made up of 11.8 million Mexicans born in the country and 7.2 million Mexican immigrants. Mexicans accounted for 11.6% of total employment and 1 in 12 workers in that country. The article quantifies the significant drop in employment among Mexican immigrant workers in the United States in 2025, which affected their remittances to Mexico.
In 2025, the employment of Mexican workers in the United States was equivalent to 84.5% of the number of workers insured by the IMSS, which is the most recognized indicator of formal employment in Mexico.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 03/2026
From 2020 to 2025, Mexico's annual remittance income increased by 48.2% in US dollars. During that five-year period, income in current pesos increased by 31.7%, reflecting the appreciation of the Mexican peso against the US dollar during that period. Furthermore, over those five years, the increase in annual remittance income measured in constant pesos was only 0.7%. Thus, inflation in Mexico and the strength of the peso during most of the 2020-2025 period reduced the purchasing power of remittances received by Mexican households.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 02/2026
The Note analyzes the main factors that explain the contraction in remittance income in Mexico and highlights how several of them are interrelated. It presents figures on the evolution of the total wage bill of Mexican migrant workers in the United States and how it declined from the second quarter of 2025 to the fourth quarter. It also notes that in that year, the percentage of income earned in the United States by Mexican migrant workers that was assigned to support their families in Mexico declined.
The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) is pleased to announce that the Call for Papers for the 2026 CEMLA Central Bank Award is now open. Paper submissions are welcome until April 24, 2026, to the email address: award@cemla.org. In this edition, CEMLA will award the first place a total of 10,000 U.S. dollars, the second place, 5,000 U.S. dollars, and the third place, 2,500 U.S. dollars. This edition also contemplates granting an Honorary Mention to a maximum of 8 papers (1,000 U.S. dollars each). For more information, please visit https://www.cemla.org/centralbankaward.html.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 01/2026
The Note quantifies the number and percentage of households receiving remittances in the country's states and highlights that there are significant differences between states in terms of the percentage of households and adults benefiting from these transfers from abroad. In the country, 11.3% of households receive remittances, or one in every 8.8 households, but in Michoacán, 31.8% of households benefit from remittances, or practically one in every three households. Furthermore, the receipt of remittances is more frequent if the head of the household is a woman. 14.5% of households in the country headed by a woman receive remittances, but in the state of Michoacán the corresponding percentage is 42.4%, or one in every 2.4 households headed by a woman.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 15/2025
Note 15 on remittances analyzes how the absence of a positive net migration flow of Mexicans to the United States over a prolonged period of years led to changes in the demographic characteristics of this group of migrants. The note details these demographic changes and argues that they are not conducive to the growth in remittance income from Mexico observed in previous years.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 14/2025
Note 14 on remittances highlights the factors that explain the decline in remittance income from Mexico in 2025. It also points out that, in the period 2015-2024, net migration of Mexicans to the United States was negative. During that period, this group of migrants decreased by half a million people, but the other 14 groups of Latin American migrants increased by 4.1 million people, or 44.8%.
CEMLA and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Dallas Fed) organized the 4th CEMLA–Dallas Fed Workshop on Financial Stability, held at the Dallas Fed’s San Antonio Branch on November 24–25, 2025.
The agenda, available here, included a keynote address delivered by Professor Itay Goldstein titled “Tracing the Sources of Fragility in the Financial System.” The program featured sessions on non-bank financial intermediation, market liquidity, and funding fragilities; the interactions and trade-offs between monetary policy and financial stability; global financial spillovers and the role of the U.S. dollar; macroprudential policy design and transmission, with applications to housing markets and beyond; emerging macro-financial risks associated with the digital transformation of financial services; and housing market dynamics and credit risk.
The XX Meeting of Heads of Monetary Policy took place on November 18, 2025, in Mexico City. The Meeting featured Óscar Arce (European Central Bank) and Joshua Gallin (Federal Reserve Board) as Invited Speakers. Óscar Arce's talk revolved around the Euro Area Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy, while Joshua Gallin presented the Monetary Policy in the U.S. The Meeting included presentations by Manuel Ramos Francia (CEMLA) on “Outlook on Inflation and Interest Rates”.
The Meeting also featured presentations from André Amante (Banco Central do Brasil), Nicolás Amoroso (Banco de México), Carlos Huertas (Banco de la República - Colombia), Carlos Montoro (Banco Central de Reserva del Perú), Mauro Alessandro (Banco Central de la República Argentina) and Leonardo Vicente (Banco Central del Uruguay) on their experiences in conducting monetary policy. Finally, a Round Table was held among heads of monetary policy.
The 2025 CEMLA Conference took place on November 6 and 7, 2025, at the University of Miami facilities in Miami, USA. The Conference featured Mário Centeno (Former Governor of the Banco de Portugal) as Keynote Speaker; and James Bullard (Dean of the Mitch Daniels School of Business at Purdue University), Felipe Larraín (Professor of Economics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), Boris Vujčić (Governor of the Croatian National Bank), and Manuel Ramos Francia (General Director of CEMLA) discussed in a round table on “Monetary Policy in a World of Fiscal Deficits and Geopolitical Fragmentation”.
In addition, 20 papers at the cutting edge of research on central banking issues were presented. The 20 research papers –corresponding to 54 authors affiliated with central banks, multilateral organizations, and universities– were distributed in 7 sessions. The sessions covered the following subjects: credit markets, communication and inflation, monetary policy, fiscal policy, macroeconomic theory, foreign shocks, and macroeconomic policy.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 13/2025
This note focuses on a virtually unknown aspect of the economics of emigration and remittances, namely whether Mexican emigrants own assets abroad and whether they own the homes in which they live. It documents that, in the case of Mexican emigration to the United States, the employment and income opportunities that these migrants have achieved as a group have allowed them not only to support their families in Mexico with remittances, but also to accumulate wealth through the acquisition of real estate.
It also documents that, in Mexico, adults who receive remittances are more likely to own a home than those who do not. This suggests that remittances contribute to the financing of real estate purchases by these beneficiaries. Savings play a more important role in home purchases by remittance recipients than by non-recipients.
CEMLA's Board of Governors decided to grant the First Place of the 2025 CEMLA Central Bank Award to the study “The Nonlinear Effects of Interbank Market Frictions on Monetary Policy Transmission Mechanism” by Willian Bejarano. In turn, the Board of Governors recognized Miriam Juárez-Torres, Cynthia Urgel Ponce de León and Daira García Maldonado with the Second Place Award for their study “The Effect of Hurricane Otis on Card Payments in Mexico”. The Third Place Award was granted to “Private Credit Bureaus and Positive Information Sharing: Are there benefits for borrowers?” by Raquel de Freitas Oliveira, José Renato Haas Ornelas and Ricardo Schechtman.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 12/2025
Employment in the United States for Mexican immigrant workers peaked in the third quarter of 2024 but then declined in the fourth quarter of that year and in the first half of 2025. In July-August 2025, this weakness in employment became more pronounced and was accompanied by declines in their wages and, consequently, in their total payroll.
CEMLA’s Directorate of Financial Stability organized the XV Meeting of Heads of Financial Stability, held in Mexico City, Mexico, on September 9 - 10, 2025. The meeting presented different topical issues, such as the global implications for cross-border spillovers, debt vulnerabilities and prudential regulation, implications of trade tension for the financial sector, and policy shocks and asset prices.
The agenda, available here, included two keynote sessions. The first speaker was Richard Berner, Co-Director of the Stern Volatility and Risk Institute and Clinical Professor of Management Practice, NYU Stern School of Business, who delivered the keynote address titled “Financial Stability – Unfinished Business”. The second speaker was Jose M. Berrospide, Assistant Director in the Division of Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Board, who gave the keynote address titled “The usability of bank capital buffers and credit supply shocks at SMESs during the pandemic”.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 11/2025
The note quantifies the potential revenue from a 1% tax on cash remittances sent from the United States to nine Latin American countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Colombia. In 2024, these countries received $123 billion in remittances from the United States. The measurement suggests that this tax, which will take effect on January 1, 2026, will not affect the amounts of remittances sent from the United States to Latin American countries. In addition, there are ways to circumvent the tax, and this process can lead to greater financial inclusion for remittance senders.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 10/2025
Over the 2015-2024 period, the U.S. wage bill of Mexican immigrant workers increased by $146.9 billion. This mainly reflected increases in compensation, as the increase in employment was very small, due to the negative net migration of Mexicans to the United States. This contrasts with what was observed in the U.S. for most other Latin American migrant groups.
The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) and Banco Central de Chile jointly organized the Workshop on Heterogeneous Agents Models: A Toolkit for Central Banks, held in Santiago, Chile, on July 10, 2025. The meeting addressed the importance of implementing Heterogeneous Agents Models (HAM) for central banks, covering current applications, policy transmission mechanisms, and future implementation strategies.
The agenda, available here, featured a keynote session by Christopher Carroll, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, titled “Introduction to Heterogeneous Agents Models”.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 09/2025
In the first few months of 2025, employment of Mexican immigrant workers in the United States declined. At the sectoral level, significant declines in employment occurred in food services, recreation and accommodation; educational services; professional and administrative services; health care and social assistance; and construction, while employment increased in manufacturing and agriculture.
During the period under consideration, the annual wage bill of these workers increased as a net result of the combination of the decline in employment and the increase in their average compensation, the effect of which more than offset the former.
Gustavo Leyva (CEMLA) taught the course, which offered an introductory look at modern intertemporal macroeconomics, with special emphasis on developing numerical methods to solve representative and heterogeneous agent economies. The course dealt with iteration methods on the value function, the Euler equation, and parametric approximation methods for the decision rules. In addition, discretization algorithms for autoregressive processes were discussed to implement the solution of these economies on the computer. The course was taught face-to-face between June 23 and June 27, 2025.
Gustavo Leyva (CEMLA) taught the course, which offered an introductory look to numerical methods with applications to macroeconomic problems, including systems of linear and non-linear equations, bootstrapping techniques applied to cross-section and time series data, and structural estimation, such as GMM. The course was taught virtually between June 9 and June 13, 2025.
The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA), Banco de España, Banco de México, Banco Central de Costa Rica, Banco Central de Chile, and Banco Central do Brasil jointly organized the VI Meeting of Heads of Financial Risk Management at Central Banks, held in Brasilia, Brazil, on June 17–18, 2025. The agenda of the event, available here, covered a range of relevant topics, including challenges and experiences with Artificial Intelligence; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk indicators; foreign exchange and interest rate risks; emerging financial risks; and the future of central bank balance sheets. It also featured two keynote sessions: one delivered by Dirk Broeders, Senior Risk Manager in the Financial Markets Division at the De Nederlandsche Bank, titled “Central Bank Capital in Turbulent Times”; and another by Rebecca Estrada-Pintel, Head of Financial Risk Management at the Bank of England, titled “Stress Testing Central Bank Balance Sheets: Enhancing Resilience in a Volatile World.”
The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) and Banco Central de Chile organized the XI Meeting of the Financial Information Forum of Latin American and the Caribbean Central Banks. The meeting was held Santiago, Chile on June 5–6, 2025 and presented different topical issues, such as strategic perspectives on the future of central bank statistics, the new data demands for payments systems, sourcing and sharing of financial data, cross-border transactions, credit and derivative repositories, and emerging challenges for statistical units. The agenda, available here, included a keynote session by Patty Dujim, Head of the Department of Securities, Sustainability and Payment Statistics at De Nederlandsche Bank, titled “Data Science for Central Banks: How to Make It Work.”
Jesús A. Cervantes González, Juan Antonio Ortega & Denisse Jiménez*, Nota de Remesas 08/2025
The note highlights the importance of remittances in relation to the GDP of Mexican states by 2024 and how in 4 of them this income exceeded 10 percentage points of state GDP. It also quantifies those remittances increased on average 31% the income/product of recipient households, but in the southern region of the country they did so by 42%.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 07/2025
U.S. labor market figures show that employment of Mexican immigrant workers weakened in the first quarter of 2025. The information does not allow us to identify whether this was due to a lower demand for their labor, whether it originated because some undocumented workers were absent from their jobs for fear of being deported, or a combination of these two factors.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 06/2025
The note presents detailed information showing that most remittance recipient households in Mexico are concentrated in small towns in the country, mainly in towns with less than 2,500 inhabitants and in those with 2,500 to less than 15 thousand people. In some regions of the country this phenomenon is more frequent. In the Occidente and Bajío region, the main recipient of remittances in the country, one out of every 3.1 households residing in towns with less than 2,500 inhabitants receives this income from abroad.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 05/2025
CEMLA's results from the processing of ENIF 2024 microdata show that 9,833,040 adults in Mexico receive remittances, which represents 10.4% of the country's adults, but in the case of women the percentage is 12% and in women in the Occidente and Bajío regions it is 17.4%. Likewise, 4,495,526 households are beneficiaries of remittances, which represents 11.3% of the country's households, but the percentage rises to 14.5% when the head of household is a woman.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 04/2025
Employment of Mexican immigrant workers in the United States lost steam in early 2025. In the first two months of the year, employment measured using seasonally adjusted data was 7,458,279 workers and was comprised of 4,756,619 men and 2,701,660 women. This weakening of employment added to the declines that had already occurred in the two previous two-month periods, which had been concentrated among male workers.
Dr. Peter Karlström from CEMLA has published a new article in the Journal of Financial Stability on macroprudential policy, systemic risk, and sectoral credit booms. This research project shows that macroprudential policies are effective in attenuating the build-up of systemic risk during booms in household credit, however, this is not the case for corporate credit booms. The findings also suggest that leverage is a key transmission channel through which household credit booms increase systemic risk. Read the paper here.
The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) and the Financial Stability Institute (FSI) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) organized the Virtual Policy Implementation Meeting on Liquidity Risk Scenario Analysis. The event took place in a videoconference on March 4-5, 2025, and its agenda, available here, focused on liquidity risk analysis, its assessment in the banking sector, the interaction with non-bank financial institutions, the 2023 banking turmoil, current practices, and the experiences from different jurisdictions.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 03/2025
Mexican immigrant workers in the United States sent 16.7 percent of their labor income to family members in Mexico in 2024. That income was equivalent to 3.38 percentage points of Mexico's GDP. From the states of New York and New Jersey, Mexican migrants sent 27 percent of their wage bill as remittances to their relatives in our country.
The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the 2025 LAJCB Conference is now open; the Conference will be held on May 22-23, 2025, in Mexico City (face-to-face). The Conference will feature Professor Manuel S. Santos (Miami Herbert Business School) as Keynote Speaker. CEMLA invites paper contributions within the broad range of topics of interest to central banks, including (but not limited to) monetary theory and policy, financial intermediation (both theory and empirics), climate-related aspects of financial stability and monetary policy, digitalization and financial markets, and payments and other financial market infrastructures. Paper submissions are welcome until March 28, 2025, through the email address: conference@cemla.org.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 02/2025
The note analyzes the evolution during 2024 of the wage bill in the United States of Mexican immigrant workers, distinguishing between that obtained by men and women and by workers with and without citizenship. It also quantifies the wage bill according to the sector of activity in which they work and for 12 U.S. states, which account for 80% of employment and the corresponding wage bill.
Jesús A. Cervantes González & Juan Antonio Ortega*, Nota de Remesas 01/2025
The article analyzes the employment figures of Mexican immigrant workers in the United States, distinguishing by sex and sector of activity. It also reviews in detail the employment figures of these workers in twelve U.S. states, which account for 80 percent of the total employment of Mexican workers in the United States.
The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) is pleased to announce that the Call for Papers for the 2025 CEMLA Central Bank Award is now open. Paper submissions are welcome until April 25, 2025, to the email address: award@cemla.org. In this edition, CEMLA will award the first place a total of 15,000 U.S. dollars, the second place, 5,000 U.S. dollars, and the third place, 2,500 U.S. dollars. This edition also contemplates granting an Honorary Mention to a maximum of 8 papers (1,000 U.S. dollars each). For more information, please visit https://www.cemla.org/centralbankaward.html.
We are pleased to announce that the Latin American Journal of Central Banking (LAJCB), hosted by CEMLA, has achieved a ranking in the second quartile (Q2) within the highly competitive category of ”Economics and Econometrics” according to the SCImago ranking. The SCImago ranking rose significantly from 0.382 in 2024 to 0.469 in 2025, increasing its position from the 44th to the 52rd percentile. This milestone reflects the growing impact and recognition of the LAJCB in the global research community. For more information about the LAJCB and the SCImago ranking can be found here.
We are pleased to announce that the Latin American Journal of Central Banking (LAJCB), hosted by CEMLA, has achieved a ranking in the second quartile (Q2) within the highly competitive Scopus’ category ”Economics and Econometrics” according to the CiteScore ranking. The journal’s CiteScore rose significantly from 1.7 in 2023 to 2.8 in 2024, increasing its position from the 36th to the 53rd percentile among a total of 729 journals in this category. This milestone reflects the growing impact and recognition of the LAJCB in the global research community. More information about the LAJCB and the CiteScore ranking can be found here.
It is our great pleasure to announce that the Latin American Journal of Central Banking (LAJCB), hosted by CEMLA, has been indexed in the Web of Science platform. With this indexation, the LAJCB joins a selected group of 359 prestigious journals in Business, Economics and Finance included in this collection. All LAJCB articles will from now on be indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) enhancing the journal’s worldwide visibility. We invite you to submit your best work to the journal here.
We are thrilled to announce that CEMLA's journal, Latin American Journal of Central Banking (LAJCB), recently got, for the first time, a SJR index (and CiteScore), which places our journal in the third quartile among 725 journals in the Economics and Econometrics category. This is a joint achievement of the editorial board, referees, and authors who have put their trust in the LAJCB since its inception in 2020. We invite you to submit your best work to the journal here.
Journal of Banking & Finance – March 2026
Stranded in the wastelands? Natural capital depletion and bank deposit reallocation
Manuel Ramos-Francia, Peter Karlström, Ricardo Montañez-Enríquez, Matias Ossandon Busch
Latin American Journal of Central Banking – November 2025
Global banking with a Latin American rhythm
Allen N. Berger, Peter Karlström, Stephen A. Karolyi, Matias Ossandon Busch, Freddy Pinzon-Puerto, Raluca A. Roman
Global Finance Journal – September 2025
The stock market effects of committing and setting GHG targets: evidence from the science-based targets initiative
Santiago Guerrero-Escobar, Gerardo Hernández-del-Valle, Marco Hernández-Vega
