Competitividad y Especialización en el Bajío Mexicano: ¿Acaso una región homogénea?

In this paper we estimate the competitiveness of the Región Bajío. The overall assessment is that Bajío lacks competitiveness, lagging in both labor productivity and wage levels (a proxy of human capital). However, there are heterogeneous competitive conditions. Only three of the cities and localities reach a favorable level of competitiveness: Querétaro, Guadalajara and Irapuato; although only Querétaro maintains the level of advantages both in productivity and wages, and this is also the case for tradables and non-tradables activities in this locality. The other 18 metropolitan zones (ZM) and municipalities of the Bajío show very low levels of competitiveness. By grouping the localities in terms of systemic competitiveness, we found that one cluster is notably more systemically competitive than the others. These are half a dozen cities that have developed relatively high and spread competitive conditions. The rest show a limited systemic integration, these including to Salamanca, San José Iturbide, Irapuato, Apaseo el Grande, Ocotlán and Fresnillo. Likewise, other small municipalities present little competitive activity; these maybe mostly characterized as typical monoproducers that have not created significant spillovers.