NAFTA’s Impact on Mexico’s Regional Development (New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives, 51)

In this book, the dynamics of continuity and change in the regional economic development of Mexico and the US border states are analyzed. These studies cover the last 25 years, after the first trade agreement, between a developed and a developing country, tooks place, and where international trade and investment have been combined with a set of relevant local factors such as regional innovation, industrialization patterns, multinational corporations’ modes of operation, public investment, and national content of exports.

 The book offers researchers a precise identification of stylized facts that characterize the pattern of regional development in Mexico and the US Southwest as well as state-of-the-art applications contrasting hypotheses from new economic geography, endogenous and neo-Schumpeterian economic growth models, and new international trade. To graduate and advanced undergraduate students in the fields of spatial geographic economics, this book offers an excellent source for its updated review of current topics on regional development in Mexico. To policy makers, the book helps to identify policy areas to reinforce the dynamics of regional development.

 Whereas other books have looked at the several impacts of NAFTA on national economies, productive sectors, and societies, this book analyzes the trade agreement’s impact with a long-term view across the diversity of developments of Mexico´s regions. As well, the analysis is carried out with the perspective of prospective reforms of a renovated trade agreement between the United States and the new Mexican federal administration .

 The collaborators in this book are researchers who are experts at the international and national levels in the field of regional economic development. During the last 25 years they have conducted their analyses in different regions of Mexico and the United States as university researchers, advisors to state and federal governments, and as practitioners.

Patricio Aroca, Professor at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Viña del Mar, Chile, and Visiting Associate Professor, University of Illinois, earned his B.S. in business (1983) from the Universidad Austral (Chile), M.A. in economics (1987) from Universidad de Chile, M.Sc. in Policy Economics (1994), and a Ph.D. in economics (1995) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is specialized in econometrics, natural resources and regional economics, and more specifically works with Input-Output analysis, Spatial Econometrics, Regional Growth and Labor Interregional Migration. He was principal investigator of the research nucleus “Regional Science & Public Policy” of the Chilean Millennium Scientific Initiative and founder of IDEAR and CEPR. In addition, his publication in international journals and books; he has consulted for the World Bank, UNCTAD, IADB and CELADE-ECLAC. He was President of RSAmericas and PRSCO and currently is member of the board of RSAI (Regional Science Association International).

Adrián de León Arias Research Professor at University of Guadalajara (Mexico)-CUCEA, Business School. Membership in “Sistema Nacional de Investigadores” equivalent to (U.S. National Science Foundation and during 2019 Senior Research Scholar at ILAS, Columbia University (New York). He earned his Bachelor's degree in economics, University of Guadalajara. 1982 and PhD in Economics, University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA). 1999. His research contributions are in the fields of regional economic development, Mexican economic growth, Evolutionary economic growth, Us-Mexican economic relations. 

As research consultant he has recently collaborated with OECD, Consortium ConTex (UT System and CONACYT Collaborative Research Grants Program), as well as ILAS, Columbia University.