Regional inequality in Mexico’s central region. An exploratory spatial analysis of the productivity at the municipal level during 1988-2003
This essay employs nonparametric and spatial techniques commonly
used in the Spatial Economics literature to study the labor productivity of the central
region of Mexico at the municipio (county) level. In particular, we measure the spatial
autocorrelation of the labor productivity and use a spatial approach to study the
intra-distributional changes of the productivity. The results show that the labor productivity
reveals strong local disparities and spatial dependency across municipios.
When subregions are defined by the spatial autocorrelation of labor productivity, it is
found that the central region of Mexico has maintained a strong polarization between
rich (the metropolitan area of Mexico City) and poor regions (south of Puebla). It is
also found that new regions such as the new dynamic corridor Puebla-Tlaxcala-Apizaco
and Tolucas valley have emerged. The spatial results of this essay can be related
to the findings of other regional studies that detect a spatial refunctionalization of
the manufacture activities, migration flows and sub-metropolitan regions in the central
region of Mexico since the beginning of the liberalization process. This essay
concludes that the recent territorial changes of the region, independently of their
causes, have kept labor productivity with strong spatial dependency and regional inequality.
Check other articles from the issue Otoño 2008 or from other issues.