Bringing the firm back in: local decision making and human capital development in Mexico's maquiladora sector

The recent decline in Mexico's maquiladora sector provides an opportunity to reassess the sustainability of basing national economic competitiveness on low wages.1 Focusing on human capital as an important component of equitable growth, the authors argue that models of its development which consider market factors alone are inadequate. Combining their own case study with a review of other studies over the past 20 years, the authors propose a “management-centered” (as opposed to a “market-centered”) model of human capital development as a basis for discussing the relative merits of in-bond industrial programs and considering measures to improve levels of human capital.