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Copyright of Mexican Journal of Economics & Finance / Revista Mexicana de Economia y Finanzas is the property of Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the past 20 years, street vendors in various cities in the Global South have resisted aggressive state sanctioned removals and relocation strategies by organizing for vendors' rights, protesting, and creating street vending member organizations with flexible relationships to the local state. Through these means, street vendors claim "rights in the city," even as the bodies they inhabit and the spaces they produce are devalued by state legitimizing systems. In this article, I present a case study of the Union de Tianguistas y Comerciantes Ambulantes del Estado de Quintana Roo, a "bottom-up" driven, flexible street vending membership organization not formalized by the state in Cancún. I argue that the Union becomes a platform for street vendors to claim rights to the city, and exemplifies vending systems that combine economic activities with leisure spaces in marginalized urban areas, and circumvent strict vending regulations without being absorbed into or directly monitored by the state. Highlighting the Union's sustainable practices of spatial transformation, and vision of self-managed spaces of socioeconomic urban life in Cancún, illuminates how the members of the Union claim rights to the city as an example of a process of awakening toward imagining possibilities for urban futures that moves away from the state and capitalists systems, and akin to what Lefebvre termed autogestion toward resisting neoliberal ideologies that currently dominate urban planning projects in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of electricity consumption on aggregate regional Mexican industrial labor productivity is examined using a stochastic production function. Electricity consumption is also used to gauge macroeconomic informality that varies greatly across regions with no geographic advantage in reducing it. Unlike prior research, persistent regional technical inefficiency is found that has little impact on reducing informality but may help reducing corruption. Although electricity consumption contributes positively to industrial labor productivity over time, Mexican industry has yet to transition to a much lower consumption/output ratio found in other countries. Regional policies supporting returns to human capital accumulation being better kept by workers while technical inefficiency is reduced are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research is to characterize the small-scale producers of mezcal in order to a better understanding of their way of producing and organizing, so that when supporting policies are developed, these be aligned with their reality. Methodology. To achieve this, a qualitative exploratory study is conducted. Interviews applied to actors involved in the mezcal industry are used as methods of data collection, as well as a questionnaire applied to 52 small-scale producers. Results. The study shows six elements that help characterize the small-scale producers studied. these are: 1) the sense of family, 2) preservation of identity, 3) craft processes of production, 4) tacit knowledge, 5) spontaneous decisions and 6) informal economy. Limitations. The main limitation of the research relates to the samplés size, which was limited due to the difficulties to access remote communities; this study cannot be generalized. Conclusions. The papers concludes by suggesting that given the characteristics identified, these types of organizations have survived over the years, despite the disadvantages they face in the current socioeconomic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The need for a firm’s business strategy to be responsive to the institutional contexts of emerging markets is well-established in the literature. Often, however, strategic responsiveness is impeded by defining institutional contexts as country-level aggregations (macro-level) and glossing over sub-national variations (micro-level). The purpose of this paper is to investigate micro-level contexts that can defy macro-level assumptions of economic rationality.Design/methodology/approach As a research site, the motivations of street vendors in Mexico City are analyzed in terms staying in one sub-national context, the informal sector, as opposed movement to another, the formal sector. Unanticipated reluctance to move from one context to another is defined as stickiness.Findings Sub-national institutional contexts are found to be sticky, with less movement between informal and formal sectors than would have been anticipated. Unexpectedly, it is found that a significant number of street vendors prefer the hardship of the informal sector to the relative security of the formal sector.Research implications International business research makes assumptions about the growth narrative of emerging markets, often characterizing a growing middle class as a rising tide that lifts all boats. In terms of further research on adapting strategy, however, assumptions of rational expectations ought to be tempered, as demonstrated by the stickiness of the informal sector.Originality/value A contribution is made to the international business literature by showing that macro-level assumptions about institutional context based on rational expectations of wealth-maximizing behavior in emerging markets may result in an incomplete view of institutional context. Ultimately, adaptation of strategy could be impaired as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyse how the violence and abuse against elderly migrants in Monterrey, Mexico affects their health. For this research, 257 elderly Mexican migrants were surveyed in the Metropolitan Area of Monterrey during 2012 through 2013. The study found that the majority of elderly people migrate to urban areas in search of a better economic opportunity. Once in the city, they are absorbed into the informal economic sectors. Results indicate that most of these elderly people suffer physical, sexual and psychological violence, as well as neglect and financial abuse from their employer, relatives, clients and pedestrians, which has an adverse effect on their health. Elderly migrants reported numerous health problems, where many of them were suffering from different types of injuries, stress and depression, among others. This paper concluded that violence suffered by elderly migrants has a significant impact on their health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexico has become an ideal laboratory for anthropology interested in studying the transformations of drug trafficking, its economies, and its cultures. Certainly, the challenges are complex and difficult, since criminal violence affects fieldwork and its results. However, when one delves into regions where drug trafficking and organized crime are present, what we can grasp ethnographically are fundamental questions about the relationships that are being generated between the state, neoliberalism, and illegality. In this article, we will analyze the expansion of drug cartels in one of the states most affected by criminal violence: the state of Michoacán, with special reference to the Caballeros Templarios-the Knights Templar. Understanding the origins and structures of this organization can teach us how the transformations of the state and criminal economies are being redrawn in neoliberal spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Although there have been many articles and books on street vendors, ambulant and fixed, around the world, and many works written about them in Mexico, little has been done on the ubiquitous ambulant beach vendors in tourist centers. Design/methodology/approach -- This paper offers an analysis of the backgrounds, levels of contentment, and aspirations of 25 women beach vendors interviewed in Acapulco in 2010. Findings -- A third of the women beach vendors had fathers who were peasants, and others had grandparents who were. Thus the article shows light on the fate of some of the offspring of a dispossessed peasantry. Far more than half of the women vendors were very content with their self-employment vending wares on the beach, a few because they could set their own hours, and a few because they had no boss. Other's content-ment was linked to the fact that they could help support their children. Part of this help meant keeping them in school. This was true whether the women were married, widowed, or abandoned. Not all were content, however, and this underscores the importance of their income to their households. Most of the women, though not all, had aspirations for more education and better work, whether in the formal or the informal economy. Social implications -- The women can be seen as marginalized because of their current poverty, and many because of past poverty leading to a lack of educational opportunities when they were young. They value education for their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether women's informal employment is an involuntary marginal condition or a preferred alternative to formal employment has generated intense debate in academic and policy circles, particularly in view of women's disproportionate representation in the informal economy. We analyzed detailed interviews with 136 working mothers in Mexico to gain a better understanding of the factors leading to informal employment, as well as the impact of this work on these women and their families. Our results show that informal employment was not a choice for many women who entered the informal labor market due to human capital constraints and family responsibilities. Additionally, women commonly faced challenges in meeting the needs of both their employers and their families and earning adequate income. We suggest policy options to address the factors constraining women's employment opportunities and improve the situation of those women already working in the informal economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper uses annual data for the period 1970-2006 in order to estimate and investigate the evolution of the Mexican informal economy. In order to do so, we model the informal economy as a latent variable and try to explain it through relationships between possible cause and indicator variables using structural equation modeling (SEM). The model uses tax burden, salary levels, inflation, unemployment and excessive regulation as potential incentives or deterrents for the informal economy. Our results indicate that the Mexican informal sector at the beginning of the 1970's accounted for 40 percent of GDP, and then it slightly decreased to stabilize around 30 percent of GDP from the late 1980's onwards. The results also confirm the importance of salaries and excessive regulation as causes of the informal economy in Mexico and the existence of a positive relationship between informality and GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting a legal definition of informality, this paper studies the causes of informality in general and with a particular application to Mexico. It starts with a discussion on the definition and measures of informality. It then argues and provides evidence that informality is not only a reflection of underdevelopment but may also be the source of further economic retardation. Next, the paper analyzes informality's main determinants, arguing that informality is not single-caused but results from the combination of poor public services, a burdensome regulatory regime, and weak monitoring and enforcement capacity by the state. This combination is especially explosive when the country suffers from low educational achievement and features demographic pressures and primary production structures. The paper then evaluates the empirical relevance of each determinant of informality to the specific case of Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic service continues to be one of the principal means for poor women and girls to earn a living. Yet, household workers do not have the same legal protection and employment rights enjoyed by other workers. This article examines changes in the sector in Mexico over the past 20 years. During this time, organisations supporting household workers have struggled to keep going against the odds, and to make this 'invisible' work visible to legislators and policymakers. Also, social reproduction - the work of caring for people within the home - has gone global, and an increasing number of Mexican women are migrating to work in households in the North. In this context, the International Labour Organisation has finally decided to begin a consultation process that is expected to lead to a convention protecting labour rights in domestic service worldwide. In this article I will highlight some of the changes in working conditions in Mexico, the continuing demands of household workers, and the ways in which they are organising at a local and national level, and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papeles de Población is the property of Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos is the property of El Colegio de Mexico AC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)