Las ciudades latinoamericanas en la economía mundial: la geografía de centralidad económica y sus transformaciones recientes

In this paper I analyze the position of Latin America in the world economy and how it has change during the crisis of 2008/9. Going beyond the usual rankings of the gdp, the paper emphasizes the geography of economic centrality. Economic centers are conceptualized as cities which concentrate economic activities which are relatively monopolized. One particular manifestation of this core-ness are the global cities. In this paper data on the localization of the world's biggest companies (Forbes Global 2000) are as well analyzed as data on gross value added in producer services in 126 cities around the world and the Global Network Connectivity (GNC) of the global cities, as calculated by GaWC (Globalization and World City Study Group). The results show, firstly, that as regards formal economic power Latin American cities remain marginal, though they succeeded to improve their position during the recent economic crisis. Secondly, data also show that São Paulo and Mexico City have important clusters of producer services, what makes them important nodes in the organization and governance of commodity chains. However, for a discussion of the position of Latin America in the economic centrality of the world economy it is crucial to understand that the agents in this organization and governance of commodity chains are in many cases local offices of global firms. This leads to the conclusion that the centrality that some Latin American cities have in the world economy results from their exogenous relations rather then from their endogenous economic potential.