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Results from studies of the relationship between road infrastructure and regional economic growth have so far been inconclusive. This paper analyzes the effect of the availability of road infrastructure on regional production in Mexican municipalities. At a regional level, the extent of road availability in a municipality was determined using an Geographic Information System (gIS) and ordinary least squares analysis, which identified the existence of a positive relation between road density and production in municipal regions. It was shown that the most significant impact of roads on gross regional production is in the manufacturing and retail sectors, while roads have no significant impact on agriculture, livestock production, fishing, and mining. Toll-free roads in particular afford increased regional benefits in comparison to toll roads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some of the main technological and financing gaps faced by SMEs in Mexico, and discusses the implications of such gaps for the design of a new industrial policy. The paper first discusses the economic importance of SMEs in Mexico as the main supporters of employment, and that of the manufacturing industry as the main driver of productivity growth and technological innovation. With regard to technological gaps, the paper emphasizes the scarce participation of Mexicans SMEs in the production of capital goods and the dependency on foreign suppliers that this implies. With regard to financing gaps, the paper presents evidence of the increasing proportion of SMEs that do not access bank loans (over three quarters of the total in recent years). Taking this into account, the paper argues for the need to incorporate, as part of a new industrial policy in Mexico, measures to strengthen the national productive-finance ecosystem. In order to do this, the paper argues for the need to characterize SMEs not only in terms of their sectoral distribution but also in terms of their position in the value chain. Furthermore, the paper argues for the need of an alternative struc-ture and functioning of the country's development banking system, con-sidering the feasibility of a dual monetary policy and the selective credit mechanisms commonly referred to as "Cajones especiales de crédito". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the Mexico City Government's accountability with respect to public debt in the time period 1999-2015. The questions we pose are as follows: To which projects were resources emanating from public debt allocated? Did the accountability mechanisms make it possible to evaluate the projects funded with public debt? Although the laws stipulate that entities are bound to be transparent about their allocation of debt, there is clearly only partial accountability when it comes to all of the funding models, including: private banking, development banking, the stock market, and public-private partnerships (PPP). Moreover, the opacity is total where evaluating outcomes is concerned. Using a cointegration test for debt and public investment, we assert that total public debt has some effect on the behavior of public investment in Mexico City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the link between economic growth and state industrial capital stock accumulation using panel data techniques in the time period 1960-2012. The analysis is done in two moments: the age of national industrialization (1960-1982) and the structural reform era (1983-2012). The results point to a long-term relationship in both periods, but with a sign opposite of the expected sign in the latter, suggesting that the deceleration of industrial capital can explain the slowdown over the past three decades. This result is confirmed with the decline of manufacturing, as well as other economic indicators. The causality tests demonstrate two-way causality between the two variables, evincing a virtuous cycle between growth and accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic opening and the dearth of federal-sponsored sectoral industrial policies pose a novel challenge for subnational governments at the dawn of the new century. This paper will argue that rather than the Mexican state entirely abandoning industrial policy, what really happened was that developmentalist functions were transferred to or appropriated by the subnational level. To do so, two states in the Mexican Republic whose sectoral industrial policies sharply contrast with the federal government-level backpedaling were examined. The literature of "new developmentalism" will serve as the backdrop to this new subnational role in Mexico, marking a divergence from the neoliberal paradigm at the federal level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was drafted using the Social Competitiveness Index (SCI) compiled by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP-Mexico) to analyze progress and/or backsliding in the areas of healthcare, education, and job income in the Mexican Republic's 32 states over the time period 2005-2014. The aim was also to use panel data techniques to evaluate the relationship between the SCI and public spending, finding that public spending on social issues was negatively related to the SCI (elasticity was -0.5764%). In conjunction with that, it was demonstrated that a lack of social competitiveness existed alongside growth in public spending, leading to the conclusion that the social policy was ineffective, on top of an economic policy that only drove scant growth in production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

T his paper analyzes the economic vulnerability and economic resilience of Baja California, Mexico, in the context of the 2007 international financial crisis. A methodological approach is proposed to develop vulnerability and resilience indexes, and the region's economic performance from 2003 to 2014 is compared to the other entities. Economic performance is measured by unbundling the SGDP into its cyclical and non-cyclical components (trend). In conclusion, when faced with an external shock, Baja California shows economic vulnerability but also strong economic resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financialization has transformed public spending into the guarantor of financial profit. One of the expressions of this process is the partnership between public spending and private capital, which has underpinned the securitization of public assets. In the road sector, structured financing constrains the availability of public resources, permits the emergence of new sources of profit for financial monopolistic capital, and drives up the cost of infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to analyze how public-private partnerships (ppp) operate in the Mexican road sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses an episodic approach to contrast the causes, transmission mechanisms, and policy responses involved in Mexico's two recent major recessions in 2001-2003 and 2008-2009 and explain their different characteristics. Both recessions were derived from speculative bubbles in specific sectors in the United States and engendered analogous episodes in the Mexican economy as a result of a high degree of integration. Even so, the former was longer due to exogenous shocks (terrorist attacks and China's accession to the World Trade Organization (wto)), which exacerbated plummeting manufactures, but the latter more profound due to the effects of the credit collapse. This evidence attests to the limitations of domestic economic policy and the Mexican economy's acute vulnerability to external shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business competitiveness has long been a subject of study and debate in the economic literature, which has pointed to various drivers of business development. Drawing on the Industrial Economics, the New Industrial Economics, and the Theory of Resources and Capabilities approaches, this paper sets forth a panel data econometric model with 2 671 Mexican micro-enterprises over four time periods, detailing the relationship between the competitive advantages of micro-enterprises and external and internal factors, such as the sectoral structure and the tangible and intangible assets of the economic unit. The principal results obtained suggest that the synergies needed for the development of the small-scale productive sector are primarily generated by way of intangible capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature has empirically demonstrated that the real exchange rate is essential to explaining the economic evolution of developing countries. It has been empirically proven that the anti-inflation exchange rate policy implemented systematically in Mexico has constituted a major restriction on the country's economic growth, a restriction that has persisted throughout this entire time period, even through different monetary and exchange rate regimes. This paper estimates an svar (1950-2014) that shows how the continuous appreciation of the real exchange rate has curbed Mexico's economic growth capacity and had an impact on other macroeconomic balances. This alone could be considered a highly potent structural macroeconomic reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to determine the presence of political budget cycles related to the elections of presidents in Mexico over the period 1980-2014. To do so, autoregressive and moving average models, extended to take account of economic shocks, are estimated for the total public expenditure, the programmable expenditure as well as the components of the latter. Our results suggest that economic shocks (measured by manufacturing production) play a minor role in the dynamics of public expenditure and, more important, that political budget cycles are present in total expenditure as well as current and capital expenditure, among others. This evidence reflects opportunist conducts of governments to remain in power as well as the use of public resources to benefit specific political groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper assesses the importance of the composition of business tissue in the evolution of the economic activity and job creation in Baja California in the context of the global crisis of 2008-2009, highlighting the behavior of micro and small enterprises. The method consists of two parts: a correspondence analysis as an exploratory tool and a confirmatory econometric analysis with confirmatory purposes in which a collection of economic census variables is used, and once reviewed population, migration and production structure indicators. As results, we found a direct and significant relationship of micro enterprises with turnover and employment during the crisis period, however, in the post-crisis period (2010-2014) the contribution of small enterprises was noticeably higher. Meanwhile, large enterprises, showed lower sensitivity and a reduced ability to create jobs even during the post-crisis period. Limitations: However, due to the limited number of observations the results should be treated with some caution because of the high segregation. It is concluded that it is not possible to reject the hypothesis that micro but especially small enterprises, played a strategic role in generating employment and economic dynamism during the crisis, even helping to reduce their impact. Therefore, it is appropriate to strengthen industrial policy that promotes training and innovation for micro and small enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how the structure and functioning of the system of cities in Mexico has changed in the framework of the economic models implemented in the country, drawing on the results of spatial interaction models. This article reviews three studies based on data obtained in 1966, 1986, and 2006 through classic gravity models, which permit a comparative analysis that reveals the transition from a hierarchical cities model in the closed-economy model to the emergence of regional-urban systems organized into networks in the midst of trade liberalization. Finally, it reflects on some causal explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro-enterprises have traditionally been considered a burden for development, from both the theoretical perspective of social sciences as well as policy praxis. However, for some years now, some of the specialized literature has presented evidence that despite their low productivity, the contribution of the informal economy to job creation and income in less-developed economies is significant. Given that other countries have begun to develop policies to encourage productivity in the informal sector, the main purpose of this paper is to understand, through a review of the regulations that support micro-enterprises, as well as new decrees and regulations, the current position of Mexico in this debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major oil fields have played an essential role in the global hydrocarbon supply, but the majority are now in decline. The Cantarell macro-reserve has produced significant volumes of hydrocarbons and brought countless benefits to the country, but starting in 2004, the exhaustion of the Cantarell supply began to affect the oil production platform. This research studies all of the factors that have had an impact on the performance of this macro-reserve, which are fundamental to explain the current state of affairs. The conclusion is that the management of the Cantarell oil field was less than optimal during the three time periods identified in the paper, as decisions were made on a nontechnical basis, which contributed to the decline and the series of challenges facing the oil complex today. These difficulties could, in turn, be mitigated through the use of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the economic, politic and social conditions around the construction of the Queretaro’s Intercontinental Airport in Mexico. Rural communities surround this airport and the research is oriented to analyze what kinds of changes have been produced in one of the most important locality: San José de Navajas. In order to do so, it is study the negotiation process that allow to expropriate the community land, the conflicts generated as a result of it and the changes in the labor conditions and labor identity of the inhabitants. The research team also studies the expectative of development created in the community as a result of the arrival of foreign direct investment, which supposed to create new jobs in benefit of the community. The results of the research show how negatives effects are produced when government takes unilateral decisions and do not consider the opinion of the community residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper there is analyzed the effect that there have a set of personal attributes and characteristics of the occupation of the worker in the search of employment. A logit multinomial model is estimated for the first quarter of the year 2009 and 2012, both periods correspond to a period of crisis and economic recovery respectively. There are in use information of the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y Empleo ENOE). The results indicate that variable sex, age, level of education, sector of activity and income, explain the motives of search in significant form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors found evidence that the level of Mexico's public debt is cointegrated with the wages of the manufacturing sector. In particular, there exists a negative relationship in both the short and long term. The results suggest that the country's public debt has contributed to the concentration of income in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]