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An important characteristic in regimes that at some point began political liberalization processes has to do with the increase in diversity and freedom of expression in the media. However, in those regimes that after initiating such processes have not been able to successfully transit towards consolidated forms of democracy, diversity and freedom of expression in the media do not translate into more effective surveillance functions against abuses of power (watchdog role), not only because the governments' commitment to accountability is more discursive than real, but also because the informational divergence in the coverage of these issues reduces their strength in public opinion. This paper compares the coverage of two alleged corruption scandals: the "White House" of president Peña Nieto and "The houses" of the director of the Federal Commission of Electricity, Manuel Bartlett. Despite being two different governments, the resulting impunity, although due to the lack of institutional commitment of the responsible agency, also responds to the inability of the media to construct an alternative and different narrative on the issue of corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a characterization of water services as public services which purpose should be to generate public value. The case of the Monterrey's Metropolitan Area is analyzed; this case shows the complexity in creating public values for the social, financial and environmental sustainability of water services. Particularly, we analyze universal access, equity for consumption and affordability of water tariffs as public values for the social sustainability of water services. One of the main findings is that efficient water services utilities not necessarily generate public values. The case study shows a clear differentiation in water services access between urban and rural areas; different levels of consumption by income level; affordability; and a persistent loss of water in the water networks. All these aspects affect significantly the generation of public value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the concept of environmental policy integration, qualitative expert interview and participative mapping, this paper focuses on the causes and consequences of environmental impacts on mangroves triggered by ill-coordinated public policies at México's southern Pacific coast. In this context, we identified not only the specific measures applied by governmental institutions and their impacts, but also other crucial political, socioeconomic, and environmental factors, which determined the scale and spatial extension of ecosystem degradation. As a result, public policies lacking environmental integration, particularly stream straightening and incentives to promote the production of biofuel made form African oil palms, were the decisive triggers, but not the sole agents of mangroves' degradation. The scale and spatial extension of observed impacts rather depend on multiply factors, not necessarily related to public policies. Moreover, an explicitly spatial dimension to the qualitative results is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The threat of transnational organized crime is a major concern in the international arena. This article, based on qualitative interviews with 133 migrant smugglers operating in the border between Mexico and the United States, aims to examine if migrant smuggling networks operating in Mexico carry terrorist to the United States. This paper concludes that although half of the respondents thought that the terrorists could reach the United States using migrant smuggling networks, none had direct knowledge about the passage of terrorists through the border between Mexico and the United States. Moreover, the data collected indicate that it is unlikely that Mexican migrant smugglers could stablish alliances with terrorist groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is a significant correlation between energy subsidies in Mexico and some dimensions of sustainable development. In this sense are analyzed the CO2 emissions, subsidies per capita energy sector, the annual growth rate of gdp, electricity consumption per capita and the production of equivalent fossil fuel energy. This research has been between the 2004-2010 period in the recent history of that country. Finally the results are studied and also are established different recommendations related to energy policy and even are presented some possible future research lines in this entire topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metropolization phenomenon was increased in the last decades in the Latin American middle cities. Traditionally the metropolitan area is delimited by its political structure, each peripheral locality immersed in these geographical areas show dissimilar socioeconomic characteristics depending on their location, that is to say, with own characteristics of gravitation. Therefore, this paper presents a discussion of some international methodologies in the definition of metropolitan areas and proposes a probabilistic model approach to choose the most influential localities in its suburbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes steps towards environmental policy integration (EPI) in Mexico, with special emphasis in agricultural policy. So far, the country has mostly used communicative instruments to reach this aim. Semi-structured interviews with high-ranking officials from the ministries of Agriculture and of the Environment show that even though these measures break ground for public servants with the will to implement the principle of EPI in policy towards the countryside, they fail to make environmentally friendly policies mandatory. Yet, recent efforts to achieve this have attained some success. It remains to be seen if they are preserved and further enhanced by the next administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some countries, including Mexico, are drug producers and exporters, although their domestic consumption is relatively low. They count with very few tools and resources to reduce drug demand (this, due to an exogenous variable), but they face a high social cost which is mainly caused by the activities of criminal groups. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze these groups using economic theory, and comes to it showing two things: a) production and drug traffic induce criminality, and the delinquents have a high probability of becoming hitmen, and b) public spending to fight drug cartels can cause criminals to violate agreements among them, leading to an increase in violence. Evidence for Mexico is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On these current days, the world's economic map is dominated by clusters or economic groupings, present in almost all geographical levels, which have demonstrated to be critical masses with an unusual success on specific fields. Such clusters are groupings of firms and related institutions that compete, and at the same time cooperate. In this new context of economic activity organization, industrial groupings (clusters) are fundamental, and their performance has become a key factor for cities', regions' and nations' competitive advantages. In this paper, I analyze and implement a methodology that identifies benchmark clusters, useful for applied regional based economic studies. The approach addressed here, applied to the Mexican economy, is based on Feser and Bergman's methodology, and an extension due to Rey and Mattheis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates to what extent the end-of-sample problem inherent to the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter may be ameliorated when estimating the output gap. For that purpose, the filter of St-Amant and van Norden (1997) is proposed using Mexican data under both univariate and multivariate methods. As a reference, the filter of Christiano and Fitzgerald (2003) and a simple linear trend method are also used. On average, the results suggest that both the univariate method of St-Amant and van Norden and the linear trend method may significantly decrease the end-of-sample problem of the HP filter. These results are used to interpret the conduct of monetary policy in Mexico during 2001-2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an effort to ascertain whether there is a relationship between out-migration and the political engagement of those "left behind" in Mexico. We use 2006 CIDE-CSES survey data, which we complement with data from another national survey, to analyze the relationship between different manifestations of out-migration and several indicators of political engagement in Mexico. in particular, we identify the following channels through which out-migration may influence political engagement in Mexico: whether the respondent has close relatives in the Us, receives remittances, intends to migrate to the Us, or has ever worked in the Us. We then model several indicators of political engagement in Mexico (i.e, levels of political information, frequency of political talk within and without the household and electoral participation) as a function of these manifestations of out-migration, and a variety of suitable control variables. Our results suggest that, against the emerging conventional wisdom (according to which migration, and in particular remittances, by their sheer size, will solve many of Mexico's developmental challenges), emigration may in fact depress political engagement in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains why income did not shape vote choice in the Mexican 2006 election, despite the efforts by the left party to turn this race into a referendum on inequality and widespread poverty. Logistic models of a post-election survey indicate that "false consciousness" or the inability to understand the issues at stake do not distinguish poorer from wealthier voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The appearance of the official poverty line in Mexico in 2000 has not been very useful for a more effective antipoverty policy. One of the main reasons has been that the official line does not acknowledge the wider discussion about poverty that has happened in the last four decades in Northern countries. Two different approaches emerge from that literature. One is the "basket of good approach" used in the United States. The other is the "social relative standards approach" to poverty that has been applied in the European Union. To select between them has important implications in terms of poverty conceptualizations and the appropriate policies to deal with it. This paper describes both approaches and draws some lessons for the case of Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of regulation of natural gas pricing in Mexico as a case of "successful" policy research. Studies done under an academic agreement between the Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE) and the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City have analyzed the welfare efficiency implications of the netback rule based on the Houston gas price that is used to set the domestic gas price. This rule results from a well structured welfare maximization general model. However, in practice the netback rule has been debated during several North American price spikes. Policy makers relied on CIDE studies to keep the netback rule. This case study examines how and why policy makers did so. The debate within the Mexican government is analyzed, and the actors involved in the policy discussions are described, as well as the relationships between CIDE and CRE that were developed, and that helped in the communication with policymakers. The methods of dissemination of research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the importance of policy networks, by analyzing two case-studies, chosen by their international importance and their similarities in social and economic terms: The Forest Pilot Plan (PPF, by its initial in Spanish) and the Biosphere Calakmul Reserve (RBC). The core hypothesis is that both the structure of policy-network (coordination and degree of relevance of each policy actor) and the efficiency of strategies -rather the social participation, as usually argued by the majority of works on forestry policies- were the key factors, which influenced the policy process and its subsequent initial policy-outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to support water policy-making, particularly in the stage of political feasibility analysis, this paper identifies the variables that determine an increase in water social conflicts in Mexico. To obtain these variables, an econometric model was built from a data-base of water conflicts registered by the national press in the period 1990-2002. The results allow the generation of a general outline of conflicts in Mexico and the identification of those governmental actions that have produced more conflicts. The correlation between conflict and rise or establishment of prices for water consumption receives particular attention, because one of the policies needed to solve the problem of water shortage Mexico is facing is the reform of its price system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of state governments and governors in Mexico has changed dramatically in the last years. Once appendices of the federal executive, they have shifted to important political and economic actors as a consequence of the arrival of democracy, a greater political competition and the decentralization processes that have taken place in Mexico in recent years. Nevertheless, there are not enough studies analyzing directly the fiscal behavior of state governments. In this context, the main objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of political variables and federal shares in state spending, by means of estimating the existence or not of the "flypaper" effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, Mexican politics has changed in two important ways. First, the PRI's defeat in the 2000 elections has ended a 70-year long one-party system. Second, the president no longer holds a majority in either chamber of a bicameral congress. In what is likely to be a new era of divided government, constitutional engineers proposed a multitude of constitutional reforms to promote good governance under a separation of powers system. While some reforms attempt to decrease the likelihood of minority presidents, others aim at strengthening the constitutional powers of the president. This paper argues that a viable and desirable strategy of constitutional change should avoid these two extremes. Instead, reforms should generate incentives to promote inter-branch cooperation during divided government. This paper discusses the benefits of a partial reform consisting of two parts: 1) electoral rules that promote correspondence between the preferences of citizens and those of policy makers and 2) constitutional powers that encourage coordination between the president and the congress in the process of policy making and cabinet formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]