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This article describes the outstanding features of the economic behavior and of the nature of economic policy in Mexico since World War II, focusing on topics such as the agricultural sector, the industrial sector, the distribution of income, the financial system, the public finances and the balance of payments, as of June 1971. The agricultural sector has provided many of the outstanding features of the economy of the country. This sector absorbs 50 percent of the labor force and contributes less than 20 percent of the value added in the production process. Even prior to the drastic changes in agricultural production and in the yields per hectare, which permitted the growth of exports and secured the necessary foreign exchange for imports of machinery and equipment, industrial development has been the primary goal of economic development policy since World War II. In the last three decades, however, while Mexico has undergone a process of sustained economic development that has permitted output per capita to increase from 75 dollars in 1940 to 560 dollars in 1968, there have been indications that the process of development itself has engendered inequalities in the income received by the various segments of the population. In the last ten years, the Mexican financial system has experienced a sustained and steady development, as a result of the growing volume of savings. Mexican fiscal policy has had the following main objectives, the determination of a desirable composition of government spending in consumption and investment, the extension of services and assistance lent by the State to the community, spreading educational, medical and social welfare services to the population, the use of tax incentives to foster saving and private investment, making the tax burden more comprehensive by means of income taxes and finally, the use of subsidies and tax exemptions to stimulate industrial development.