Global change and local economic restructuring: the case of Mexico City

Jiménez Godínez, Miguel Ángel (2015) Global change and local economic restructuring: the case of Mexico City. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

This thesis is about economic transformation in Mexico City between 1980 and 2000. It explores the extent to which Mexico City’s economic restructuring process has been caused by trade liberalisation. The thesis assesses the extent to which industries located in Mexico City reacted to a reorientation in production focus, characterised by the shift from national to international markets. It analyses in detail the pace and geography of neo-liberal economic change, and its effects upon a specific location. It also evaluates the role played by global economic agents in gauging the forces influencing economic restructuring in Mexico, and particularly in Mexico City. At the core of this restructuring process is the change in regional industrial location patterns in Mexico, as well as the decline of manufacturing – with regard to production and employment – in Mexico City and its rise as a service centre. The thesis therefore engages with current debates on new economic geography on the one hand and globalisation on the other, focusing attention on the possible emergence of a group of “global” urban centres embedded in a broader network of cities in developed and developing countries alike, which connect global production circuits and coordinate global/regional markets. More concretely, the thesis focuses on the automotive and consumer electronics industries with the aim of understanding the causes and effects of economic events in terms of location decisions, particularly those made by transnational corporations. By placing the empirical processes of economic restructuring within the theoretical context of trade liberalisation and globalisation, I seek to make an original contribution to social science debates about the way industry reacts to economic signals and how global processes, despite taking place in specific locations, have wide-reaching effects upon social welfare, mainly though the transformation of local labour markets.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2015 Miguel Ángel Jiménez Godínez
Library of Congress subject classification:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences
Sets:	Departments > Geography and Environment
Supervisor:	Jones, Gareth A. and Thornley, Andrew
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/3080

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