About

Alberto Fuentes is an Associate Professor in the School of City & Regional Planning and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a scholar of global development whose work focuses on the political economy of industrial transformation in Latin America. His research pays particular attention to the consequences of these economic changes for workers. Alberto Fuentes obtained his PhD from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and holds a master’s degree in City Planning from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Social Science
• Economics
• Public relations
• Macroeconomics
• Law
• Market economy
• Economic system
• Economic policy
• Political economy
• Public economics
• Microeconomics

Selected publications

• Sticky industrial policies and divergent value chain upgrading patterns: lessons from Querétaro and Jalisco, Mexico

  Business and Politics · 2025-05-14

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In proposing industrial policies to promote development-enhancing upgrading, both the Middle-Income Trap (MIT) and Global Value Chain (GVC) literatures imply a “technocratic” approach that matches a given technical challenge to the right policy instrument. This paper suggests that, apart from the technical demands of the problem at-hand, it is also necessary to observe how governments at the subnational level practice path-dependent “sticky” styles of industrial policy that consistently favor some policy tools and approaches over others. Drawing upon four industry cases in the Mexican states of Jalisco (electronics, and information and communication technologies) and Querétaro (automotive and aerospace), we identify two distinct local industrial policy styles, as the former state deployed a Business-guided style while the latter relied upon a State-guided alternative. These styles, in turn, were each biased towards some forms of upgrading over others, leading to two main conclusions: first, that local policy styles must be taken into account to understand how deviations from technocratic policy selection appear. And second, that these styles can generate long-term impacts on the kinds of industrial upgrading observed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Can Partial Growth Coalitions Build Pathways Out of the Middle-Income Trap? The Case of Querétaro, México

  Studies in Comparative International Development · 2023 · 9 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Economics
  • Economic system

  Abstract Although scholars often portray Mexico as caught in the “middle-income trap,” this description obscures important subnational variation in patterns of economic development. We leverage this variation by examining the case of Querétaro, a state with high levels of structural transformation and economic growth since the 1980s. We reconstruct the historical trajectory of its two leading industries, automotive and aerospace. We observe that while both have cumulatively delivered real developmental gains, each also exhibits a complex mix of strengths and weaknesses. We further find that these industries’ advancements and hindrances over time appear closely related to the kinds of “partial” coalitions — groups of actors from the state, private firms, and civil society organizations such as labor unions — which participate in industry-level decision-making. Both industries saw periods of “upgrading” when the partial coalitions supporting them were expanding their cognitive diversity while avoiding gross imbalances in the distribution of power among their members. They likewise experienced periods of stagnation when either of those coalition conditions underwent major change. These findings suggest that debates on escaping the middle-income trap should consider how changes in partial political coalitions affect policy models and options.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Learning Targets: Policy Paradigms and State Responses to the Anticorruption Transnational Advocacy Network Campaign in Guatemala

  Latin American Politics and Society · 2022 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  ABSTRACT Scholarship on Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) increasingly recognizes that even weak states targeted by TANs may respond, and subvert, transnational norm socialization campaigns. It examines both the conditions conducive to such responses and the range of policy instruments available to these states. Yet this emerging work lacks a robust, contextualized account for how states devise the strategy and the content of their responses. This article builds on the policy-learning literature to elucidate the process through which states construct their antiTAN approaches. It suggests that states’ policy paradigms in the field of domestic security largely shape those responses, with different paradigms offering distinct priorities and instruments. The comparison of the divergent impact of the Guatemalan state’s contrasting responses to two similar legal-political challenges, undertaken in the context of the same anticorruption TAN campaign, illustrates the argument.

  PublisherDOI

• Appetite for Reform: When do Exogenous Shocks Motivate Industrial Policy Change?

  The Journal of Development Studies · 2022 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Economics
  • Macroeconomics

  Although much industrial policy research addresses the “supply side’ task of discerning superior policies, it pays less attention to ‘demand side’ questions of when and to what extent countries adopt reforms. And while exogenous shocks serve as the impetus for new industrial policy adoption across a broad array of empirical case studies, less is known about when such shocks register as salient enough to elicit policy shifts. This paper considers the conditions under which exogenous shocks motivate varying degrees of industrial policy change. We examine divergent reforms in Mexico and Brazil’s petroleum industries after the 1973 Oil Shock, and automotive industries following the 1982 Debt Crisis. The evidence informs a ‘satisficing’ model, which suggests that the interaction between exogenous shocks and two main local factors – the ‘goals’ of a paradigm shared by industry decision-makers, and the aggregate levels of ‘slack’ resources available to quell dissent in times of uncertainty – shapes varying orders of policy response. This satisficing model proves useful in anticipating how responses to external crises might unfold at the industry level.

  PublisherDOI

• Ideology, Expertise, and Industrial Transformations with Mutual Gains: Developmental Professionals in Nicaragua’s Cheese Industry

  Latin American Research Review · 2019-09-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  How might industrial transformations with mutual gains unfold in late-developer contexts devoid of the state’s helping hand or the pedagogical guidance of multinational buyers in global value chains? This article addresses this question through the study of a deviant case focused on a set of seven cheese-processing cooperatives in Nicaragua. It traces the cooperatives’ adoption of a new, upgraded “Gebhardian” organizational model—incorporating improvements in primary production and export-oriented processing—to the actions of a team of “developmental professionals” employed by foreign aid agencies. Drawing on ideational accounts in political science and sociology, the article then suggests that two explanatory factors set these professionals apart from other comparable actors: their adherence to a social democratic ideology and their base of expert knowledge. It also highlights the prerevolutionary collective experience of targeted rancher communities, which is reminiscent of Hirschman’s conserved “social energy,” as an indispensable background condition for the transformation.

  PublisherDOI

• The divergent logics of industrial change: a comparison of export-cheese processors in Nicaragua

  Socio-Economic Review · 2019-02-08 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract According to the industrial policy literature, market failures hamper industrialization processes among private sector firms. Its proposed state-centered solution builds on a conception of these firms as solely profit-maximizing and largely unable to independently solve collection action dilemmas. This article offers a more nuanced portrayal of the private sector’s behavior. It draws upon a broad comparative institutional literature on embedded capitalism and an empirical study of the unexpected industrial transformation of cheese processors in rural Nicaragua to claim that nonmarket logics, such as the familial or community logics, may similarly impinge upon firm action. These logics endow firms with contrasting understandings of group boundaries, on the one hand, and organizational priorities and associated governance mechanisms, on the other—two factors that, together, produce divergent, and often effective, responses to collective action dilemmas. The article concludes with a review of the argument’s implications for industrial policy.

  PublisherDOI

• Neither synthesis nor rivalry: Complementary policy models and technological learning in the Mexican and Brazilian petroleum and automotive industries

  Business and Politics · 2018-11-19 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Although technological learning is indispensable for economic transformation in developing countries, recent research on industrial policy both lacks consensus regarding policy models and engages in little long-term analysis of policy impacts. This study contributes to this literature through a controlled case comparison of the varied addition of new and unique functional capacities in the Mexican and Brazilian automotive and petroleum industries from 1975 to 2000. It offers a dynamic industrial policy perspective that underscores the explanatory role of alternating state- and market-led industrial policy approaches and their associated cumulative processes of “exploration” and “exploitation” (March (1991)). It also suggests that two background conditions—prior investments in learning and exogenous shocks that undermine the status quo—intervene decisively in the successful sequencing of policy approaches. The study concludes by proposing a framework that recognizes three main learning pathways formed through different configurations of the main independent variable and background conditions. This framework can be deployed as a rough predictive tool to assess how other industries might most effectively increase their technological sophistication.

  PublisherDOI

• Structural Change and Growth in Central America and the Dominican Republic: An Overview of Two Decades, 1990–2011 ‐ by Beteta, Hugo and Moreno‐Brid, Juan C.

  Bulletin of Latin American Research · 2017-09-05

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Los apóstoles del desarrollo y la modernización de la industria azucarera guatemalteca

  Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos · 2017-12-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  El presente estudio desarrolla un marco teórico que combina dos esquemas. Primero, se sugiere que, a partir de 1970 y hasta principios de 1980, la industria enfrentó la amenaza existencial de una serie de condiciones de vulnerabilidad, incluidas la movilización de sus trabajadores y el colapso de sus principales mercados. Segundo, de acuerdo con el esquema de “lógicas institucionales” se arguye que en esta búsqueda un pequeño grupo de profesionales o “apóstoles del desarrollo”, inspirado en la lógica institucional religiosa, desarrolló un conjunto de novedosas prácticas y estrategias en un ingenio de la industria. Seguidamente, estos mismos apóstoles del desarrollo divulgaron las prácticas y estrategias, promoviendo su adopción en otros ingenios y transformando la industria. El artículo concluye con una discusión de las implicaciones teóricas y prácticas del caso.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Spurred to Upgrade: A Review of Triggers and Consequences of Industrial Upgrading in the Global Value Chain Literature

  World Development · 2017-06-14 · 185 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Seth Pipkin

  University of California, Irvine

  6 shared