Recension: Banking, economic groups and corporate governance in Mexico: the consequences of bank privatization

Abstract

This research suggests that, contrary to the original objectives of bank privatization in Mexico, which sought to promote a diversified ownership structure capable of preventing concentration phenomena, banks were sold to economic groups that are networks of concentrated ownership companies with few counterweights to the decisions of the majority shareholders. Therefore, banking in Mexico cannot be fully understood without taking into account the system of economic groups that has governed Mexican private sector activity since the end of the 19th century. Commercial banks have played a key role in the financing of large business networks.