Spatial Dimensions of Trade Liberalization and Economic Convergence: Mexico 1985-2002

This paper studies the spatial dimension of growth in Mexico over the past three decades. The literature on regional economic growth shows a decrease in regional dispersion from 1970 to 1985, and a sharp increase afterward coinciding with the trade liberalization of the Mexican economy. Using spatia...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Aroca, Patricio, Bosch, Mariano, Maloney, William F.
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2012
Subjects:
GDP
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2005/10/6323688/spatial-dimensions-trade-liberalization-economic-convergence-mexico-1985-2002
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/8512
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Summary:This paper studies the spatial dimension of growth in Mexico over the past three decades. The literature on regional economic growth shows a decrease in regional dispersion from 1970 to 1985, and a sharp increase afterward coinciding with the trade liberalization of the Mexican economy. Using spatial econometric, tools the authors analyze how the process of convergence/divergence has mapped spatially and whether it makes sense to talk about spatial regions in Mexico. Although the rich North-poor South dichotomy has dominated this phenomenon, interesting patterns emerge. Namely the distribution of growth after Mexico's post-liberalization seems to be much less associated with distance to the United States than the authors had initially expected.