‘Fast Money’: Financial Exclusion in the Mexican Economic Adjustment Model

Abstract

Research on the restructuring of financial markets in advanced industrial countries has focused primarily on the consequences of changing regulation and of concentration of capital and control. At an international geographic scale, these processes have produced strong financial centers and new outposts for capital transactions. They have also resulted in the reworking of domestic capital markets with significant consequences for the location of economic activities and access to financial services. In Mexico the financial infrastructure is ‘thin’ both with respect to the variety of institutions and in space. As a consequence of privatization and state innovation, a financial infrastructure is developing with important implications for access to capital by different segments of the economy and regions. This new financial infrastructure has a distinctly bimodal character. We describe the development of the Mexican financial infrastructure after financial market restructuring and speculate on the consequences for economic development, including its spatial dimension.