Research on the restructuring of financial markets in advanced industrial countries has focused primarily on the consequences of changing regulation and of concentration of capital and control. At an international geographic scale, these processes have produced strong financial centers and new outposts for capital transactions. They have also resulted in the reworking of domestic capital markets with significant consequences for the location of economic activities and access to financial services. In Mexico the financial infrastructure is ‘thin’ both with respect to the variety of institutions and in space. As a consequence of privatization and state innovation, a financial infrastructure is developing with important implications for access to capital by different segments of the economy and regions. This new financial infrastructure has a distinctly bimodal character. We describe the development of the Mexican financial infrastructure after financial market restructuring and speculate on the consequences...

The politics of Mexican development

‘Fast Money’: Financial Exclusion in the Mexican Economic Adjustment Model

The research presented here sought to answer a simple question: why do motor car factories appear to suffer from particularly poor industrial relations? The methodology, hypotheses and answers proved more complex, however. Much of the work on industrial relations in the motor vehicle and allied industries concentrates upon either the workforce or the firm as an independent variable to explain strategies of accumulation. A problem with this approach is that it tends to identify few of the complex factors of production which interact to produce patterns of conflict or compromise in the workplace. Here, this methodology is inverted to analyse the union and the firm as dependent variables influenced by what we describe as the wregime of accumulationM. If the regime of accumulation is an independent variable to be understood only as pacapitalismn, however, and defined narrowly as the ownership, control, and reproduction of land, labour, knowledge and organisation, it fails to address the changing structural composition and strategy of accumulation. Structural transitions in the economy occur in response to the organisational dynamics of human agencies such as the trade union, the firm, the state and the market whose behaviours are not necessarily shaped by short-term fluctuations in the economy, nor by immutable class-derived antagonisms. Thus, we seek to identify three sub-units of analysis, namely artisan craf twork, mass production / consumption or 8vFordism88, and an emerging, transnationalised and highly fragmented form of production which combines elements of the two earlier categories, described here as flexible specialisation. As a macrohypothesis, we suggest that the organisational forms of the state, the firm and the trade union change with the category of accumulation and that patterns of intensifying industrial conflict are more likely to occur during periods of transition. The resulting disorientation of established organisational norms and structures undermines the capacity of the state to maintain hegemonic equilibrium among social categories and classes, indicating the probability of arbitrary and extra-legal, if often irrational acts by the state, the firm or the trade union. In short, we seek to identify the relationship between economic transitions and industrial conflict by analysing the dynamics of collective bargaining in the Mexican motor vehicle

https://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/3819/b14263518.pdf

Industrial Conflict, Accumulation and the State: Collective Bargaining in the Mexican Motor Vehicle Industry

OF THE THESIS One Hundred Years of Servitude: The Colombian Labor Movement 1848-1948

/pdf/one-hundred-years-of-servitude-the-colombian-labor-movement-3n7mmhv32k.pdf

One hundred years of servitude : the Colombian labor movement 1848-1948

Economic development requires choices among a broad spectrum of alternative strategies and, as the recent experience of Mexico suggests, those choices are not easy. A complex politics is involved in the transition from one development strategy to another. The international political economy and domestic social coalitions both influence the costs and benefits associated with various development policies; they rule out some choices, but numerous options still remain. How can one explain actual outcomes? Observers may significantly increase their ability to explain outcomes by incorporating a statist component into their analyses. Within the very broad parameters set by the international political economy the state influences (but does not determine) the creation and the demands of the social coalition itself. In addition, the state may use policy instruments and advantages from the domestic and international arenas to implement policy even in the face of domestic opposition. The structure of the domestic political economy determines the space within which the statist perspective contributes to explanatory power. Eventually, it is in a historically based ideology that the chief explanation for the state's choice of policy and the construction of particular domestic coalitions is to be found.

Explaining choice of development strategies: suggestions from Mexico, 1970–1982

The research points to the relevance of understanding the role that traditional habits and practices (i.e., passive acquisition of new technologies, lack of implicit learning efforts, weak investments in machinery and equipment) play in shaping the development of an industry. It also considers how institutions (in the form of policies) can effect changes to (or reinforce) these habits and practices. It shows that without purposeful intervention to support learning, the policy regime is not enough on its own to ensure that technological learning and capacity building takes place. Therefore, building capacity locally and creating an institutional regime that supports innovation appears to be the only way in which learning and capacity development processes can be enhanced.

background

/pdf/learning-and-innovation-under-changing-market-conditions-the-3c6nyfatix.pdf

The politics of Mexican development

Citations

‘Fast Money’: Financial Exclusion in the Mexican Economic Adjustment Model

Industrial Conflict, Accumulation and the State: Collective Bargaining in the Mexican Motor Vehicle Industry

One hundred years of servitude : the Colombian labor movement 1848-1948

Explaining choice of development strategies: suggestions from Mexico, 1970–1982

Learning and innovation under changing market conditions : the auto parts industry in Mexico

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