NBER: With all the talk these days about globalization and its discontents, the tendency is to focus on the alleged damage suffered by people with the greatest exposure to its most common manifestations, such as lower trade barriers and relaxed rules for foreign investment. But what about people who have been largely bypassed by globalization?

In Mexico, it appears that people living in areas with the least exposure to globalization -- regions that are not attracting foreign investment and are lacking in industries that serve international markets -- are lagging behind those residing in regions that have felt its full force. In Globalization, Labor Income, and Poverty in Mexico NBER Research Associate Gordon Hanson asserts that in the 1990s, incomes fared relatively poorly in parts of Mexico that experienced little of the effects of globalization when compared to the so-called "high exposure" states of northern Mexico whose export-oriented industries have been magnets for foreign investors. Click here to read the whole story.