Abstract

FUJII, Dmitri; TORRES, Luis D.  and  SALINAS, Ángel. Capacidades tecnológicas y el impacto del sector externo en la industria manufacturera mexicana. Econ: teor. práct [online]. 2013, n.38, pp.51-82. ISSN 2448-7481.

Following the opening of the Mexican economy in the 90s, the domestic industry has been characterized by a high level of heterogeneity among competitive and non-competitive sectors. The present work argues that the main difference between these sectors can be explained by two specific characteristics of the Mexican industry: technological capabilities and the participation of the foreign sector (in terms of FDI and exports). Therefore, our analysis presents a novel division for the Mexican industry, in high-tech and low-tech types of sectors. Our results show that between 20% and 24% of the Mexican industry can be considered high-tech. The robustness of such division is then tested by the discriminant analysis technique, which shows more than 85% precision, and the significance of all independent variables. We conclude arguing that successful sectors in Mexico in recent years have invested in technological capabilities and are focused on foreign sector.

Keywords : technological capabilities; Mexican industry; discriminant analysis.