TY  - JOUR
AU  - González,Rafael Dobado
AU  - Galvarriato,Aurora Gómez
AU  - Williamson,Jeffrey G.
TI  - Globalization, De-Industrialization and Mexican Exceptionalism 1750-1879
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12316
PY  - 2006
Y2  - June 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12316
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12316.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Aurora Gomez
Division of Economics CIDE
Lomas de Sta. Santa Fe 12010
Mexico D.F. Mexico
E-Mail: aurora.gomez@amadeus.cide.edu

Jeffrey G. Williamson
350 South Hamilton Street #1002
Madison, WI 53703
Tel: 608-441-0023
Fax: 608-204-0783
E-Mail: jwilliam@fas.harvard.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2006-06-19
AB  - Like the rest of the poor periphery, Mexico had to deal with de-industrialization forces between 1750 and 1913, those critical 150 years when the economic gap between the industrial core and the primary-product-producing periphery widened to such huge dimensions. Yet, from independence to mid-century Mexico did better on this score than did most countries around the periphery. This paper explores the sources of Mexican exceptionalism with de-industrialization. It decomposes those sources into those attributable to productivity events in the core and to globalization forces connecting core to periphery, and to those attributable to domestic forces specific to Mexico. It uses a neo-Ricardian model (with non-tradable foodstuffs) to implement the decomposition, and advocates a price dual approach, and develops a new price and wage data base 1750-1878. There were three forces at work that account for Mexican exceptionalism: first, the terms of trade and Dutch disease effects were much weaker; second, Mexico maintained secular wage competitiveness with the core; and third, Mexico had the autonomy to devise effective ways to foster industry. The first appears to have been the most important.
ER  -