Regímenes De Desempeño Económico Y Dualismo Estructural En La Dinámica De Las Entidades Federativas De México, 1970-2006 (Regimes of Economic Performance and Structural Dualism in the Dynamics of States of Mexico, 1970-2006)

This paper describes the dynamics of the economic performance of the sub-national Mexican states from 1970 to 2006; the used state variables are the levels and the growth rates of the GDP per capita. The authors situate his approach in a conceptual and methodological panorama of the existent literature. Starting by the regime concept, the paper introduces a distance notion for to compare the observed paths and the clustering of the economies whose evolution is studied. The analysis shows that have existed two fundamental clusters: One of high and another of low performance, in addition of other transitory groups. In the cluster of high performance increases the number of members while in the cluster of low performance diminishes; at the same time, the article shows that the sub-national states that belong to the first cluster have had performances each time more similar. Also it confirms that the subnational states move starting from the cluster of low performance to arrive to the cluster of high performance and that the distance between both clusters has increased. These facts are interpreted basing in the concept of dual economy proposed by the development theory