This book manuscript explores strategic industrial policy as a promising yet overlooked pathway to technological advancement and economic transformation for middle-income countries. It provides the first comprehensive political economy analysis of industrial upgrading attempts in Mexico's software and aerospace sectors during the twenty-first century. The study challenges the conventional wisdom that state intervention and business-government collaboration inevitably devolve into rent-seeking. Empirically, it marshals cross-national, national, and subnational evidence, and demonstrates through mixed methods that specific configurations of business cohesion and state capacity critically determine policy adoption, implementation, and ultimate success in promoting high-tech sectors. When both elements are strong, synergistic relationships emerge that create skilled workforces and essential public goods such as innovation infrastructure and industry certification standards.
The project “Greening Mexico: Policy Pathways Amidst Global and Local Constraints” aims to strengthen public and private capacities for designing and implementing green industrial policies that foster sustainable and inclusive development in Mexico. It will examine both the federal-level Plan México and the subnational initiatives targeting green sectors, closely considering global and domestic opportunities and constraints. The project will also assess public and private sector capacities to adopt and deploy such policies. Drawing lessons from observed trajectories, the project will identify best practices and offer concrete recommendations to enhance growth-promoting and greening capabilities, including inter-ministerial coordination, federal–subnational collaboration, and public–private partnerships.
This project analyzes the political and social institutions that structure how multinational firms operate in Mexico. Since the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, Mexico has grown into the United States’ most important trade partner and a recipient of much foreign investment from American multinational companies (MNCs). We lack, however, a systematic account of the political and social institutions that structure MNCs’ activities in the the region. The guiding research questions are: What types of ties do MNCs build with local actors, including government, firms, banks, and universities? And how do foreign and domestic firms in Mexico coordinate lobbying and other claim-making activities?