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This paper studies local governments' decisions on public debt under the Financial Discipline Law for States and Municipalities (ldfem in Spanish) in Mexico. It implies distinguishing economic and political factors and their relevance within ldfem's legal framework that defines norms and limitations for Mexican subnational governments. Based on municipal data for 2017-2019, our results prove that political variables significantly impact municipal debt. This paper highlights the elections' proximity and the incumbent mayor's electoral support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to identify the necessary or sufficient conditions that promote the installed photovoltaic (pv) capacity in Mexico. To do this, different configurations of conditions are identified, which can lead to the same desired case, through the comparative qualitative analysis of complex cases. The analysis suggests that, to boost the installed pv capacity, a long-term planning of the Mexican pv industry should be carried out. The starting point of such a plan should consists of the following five necessary conditions: a) tax credit for investment or production; b) feed in tariff & feed in premium; c) development of intellectual, technical and professional capital; d) the promotion of research and development of pv technology, and e) to include installed pv capacity in smart grids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the way in which the Mexican electorate modified the configuration of the party system after the 2018 election. By analyzing the structure and dynamics of electoral competition, it explores different dimensions to determine the magnitude of the electoral change and its translation in the party system after this election. For this purpose, the paper compares the results of the presidential and federal deputies' election in 2018, with the results of the elections held since the early 1990s. This research offers a historical perspective of the magnitude of the changes registered during this election in both the structure of electoral competition (the massive reorientation of the vote in a large part of the country, the re-concentration of power in a party, the reduction of partisan fragmentation and the changes in the nationalization of the vote of the main forces) and the dynamics of electoral competition (the emergence of the first government of the unified party from 1994, the effect of dragging the presidential election on legislative results). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the literature on formal and informal institutions, this paper offers a typology of the role informal institutions play in the efficacy or inefficacy of formal institutions. Particularly, whether and why de jure and de facto independence converge or diverge. We distinguish four roles that informal institutions can play: competing, reinforcing, overlapping, and redundant. To illustrate our typology, we include examples of each role from Latin American countries. In Brazil we show that a norm of professionalism reinforces internal judicial independence, whereas in Mexico a norm of patronage competes with it. In Uruguay we show that a norm of legislative cooperation is redundant with a high level of de jure external judicial independence, whereas in Paraguay a norm of militant subordination overlaps with a low level of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a systematic review of the scientific literature on participatory monitoring (PM) in Mexico in order to understand its dimensions and usefulness for decision-making and public environmental policies. For this, a conceptual scheme of the mp is proposed from the socioecosystemic perspective (SEPM) in accordance with interdisciplinary scientific approaches and citizen science, through eight structural dimensions. The qualitative method of analysis was based on the application of the Search, Assessment, Synthesis, Analysis (SALSA) protocol, and the use of Scopus and scielo databases. The results first describe general spatial and temporal trends for Latin America and, subsequently, focus on the analysis of 24 preselected and coded publications for Mexico, considering monitoring criteria related to eight structural dimensions of the conceptual scheme. It is observed that the SEPM in Mexico has increased since the year 2000, the scale has been local, the land tenure dominant of social property, the regional scope, and has been more applied to the forest, water and agroforestry socio-ecosystems. The sepm has great potential for decisionmaking at different organizational levels, especially when it is implemented in an integrated manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this work is to argue that the decentralization of health services for the uninsured population in Mexico has not yielded the expected results. By analyzing the evolution of some indicators constructed from INEGI and Ministry of Health databases, we conclude that the current government's effort to recentralize health services to the uninsured population in Insabi is justified. However, the contradiction between the declared objectives and the financial effort made is evident, which makes a fiscal reform unavoidable. In the last part, we show the feasibility of this reform in the current economic context and outline its main characteristics, which will be specified in a future paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the chemical hazards-related disaster risk reduction (drr) scheme in the petrochemical industry oriented city of Coatzacoalcos (Mexico) in the context of political decentralization. This work addresses the role of public-private partnerships, as well as the institutional environment around civil protection and chemical risk management. The paper identifies the scopes of action of public and private agents, and analyzes the legal framework, the informal political agreements and the non-legal regulations that allow these agents' collaboration. The study shows that the functionality of these partnerships is based on forms of trust that do not rely entirely on the normative framework established by State organizations and international agreements; the trust that underlies their schemes of collaboration is relatively autonomous from the bureaucratic side of this institutional environment. The study concludes that the benefits and rights accessed through personal networks are the core of the institutional environment around risk governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze some of the relevant elements of transparency associated to the public policy in education in five Mexican public universities. For this, we use multidimensional indexes based on indicators related to the main public programs in higher education. The analysis incorporate aspects of institutional performance, teaching staff, students and funding. As principal finding, it was identified that Mexican Public Universities have incorporated into their institutional discourse elements derived from educational policy as part of their processes of legitimation, considering the obligatory legal frame. This implies the incrementally approaching the dynamics of transparency present in the Mexican public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the cost of insecurity and crime (CID) in Mexico at a state level for 2013. The accounting approach is used, classifying costs as follows: anticipation, consequence or remedial, and response. Each of these is measured in terms of the state's gross domestic product and per capita. National average for CID in 2013 was 5.69 per cent of the gross domestic product. The average CID per capita is 6 799 Mexican pesos. It is observed that the richest states are the ones that spend the most. This relation deserves further discussion. We conclude that if the expenditure in public security were oriented to prevention of insecurity, social expenditure, infrastructure or some other area that may impact cultural change, economic growth and job generation, this would allow to boost greater social equality and opportunities. [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 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]

This paper analize four competitiveness indices for Mexican federative entities produced by two local higher educational institutions and two local agencies. The results indicate that while these studies require indicators to continuously improve their quality and explanatory power, these changes are greater compared to the main international competitiveness indices. Relevance and reliability for the economic planning will be greater for decision makers, policy makers and individuals concerned as usefulness and benchmarks in the design and monitoring of local public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), one of the most important issues on police reform was aimed at the elimination of municipal police or its incorporation into the local police aparatus. The idea that the state police can take over the tasks of the municipal police involves considering the role of both institutions as similar, or that the municipal policing activities could be included in the operation of the state police. In this context, the aim of this paper is to argue that at least some municipal police have quite distinct functions to state and cannot be replaced by the usual functions of the state police without substantial and irreplaceable loss of police service that municipalities offer its inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to determine the presence of political budget cycles related to the elections of presidents in Mexico over the period 1980-2014. To do so, autoregressive and moving average models, extended to take account of economic shocks, are estimated for the total public expenditure, the programmable expenditure as well as the components of the latter. Our results suggest that economic shocks (measured by manufacturing production) play a minor role in the dynamics of public expenditure and, more important, that political budget cycles are present in total expenditure as well as current and capital expenditure, among others. This evidence reflects opportunist conducts of governments to remain in power as well as the use of public resources to benefit specific political groups. [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]

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of Habitat program concerning social capital of urban poor communities that were intervened between 2009 and 2012 in Mexico. Following a randomized evaluation methodology or experimental type, and applying a difference-in-difference method (DID) to databases resulting from two surveys conducted in more than 11000 households located in 33 cities or metropolitan areas of the country, the conclusion was that the program positively impacted only one of the fourteen variables of the social capital index constructed for this purpose. That variable was prevailing trust between neighbors. Results indicated that the actions of Habitat were insufficient to favorably influence on other significant and specific dimensions of social capital, like participation, cooperation, solidarity, social cohesion or the exchange of useful information in communities, nor in the integral behavior index of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]