ABSTRACT Mexico’s current export-led economy arose from the adoption of a market-driven model based in conditions of technological disarticulation separating dominant transnational firms from the national industrial base. This determined that, in contrast to Verdoorn’s analysis, the crucial manufacturing sector would function not as a motor-force inducing a process of autonomous national development by accelerating productivity growth and promoting product and process innovations, but rather would deepen a fragmented process of production, centered on processing imported components under conditions of declining total factor productivity. Despite the profound reordering of its economic geography over the past 30 years, this process has failed to produce legitimate markers of “upgrading”.