Comparing Performance of Subnational Governments in Latin America after the Reforms.

This paper is essentially a dialogue with Alfred Montero's insightful idea of approaching the generic and controversial concept of "development" through a more empirical notion of "productivity-enhancing synergy" between public and private agents at the heart of developmental outcomes, in his comparative analysis of Brazil's and Spain's subnational governments (Montero, 2002). As a way of discussing his contributions, we decided to subject it to a tentative quantitative test, based on another pair of countries, Brazil and Mexico, in a context of stabilization of the market reforms and of reasonably sustained growth that is different from his original setting. Based on preliminary data gathered, we will indicate that there is a high correlation between market-conforming institutions and developmental performance of the states of Brazil and Mexico, without taking into account how strategic actors and institutions interacted through a "productivity-enhancing synergy". Put it simply, this restricted test will allow us to bring into some questions to Montero's concept of "productivity-enhancing synergy" to possibly advance his contributions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]