Economic history of Mexico

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Axe-money from Mexico at the Prehistory Museum of Valencia

.

Since the colonial era, the economic history of Mexico has been characterized by resource extraction, agriculture, and a relatively underdeveloped industrial sector. Economic elites in the colonial period were predominantly Spanish-born, active as transatlantic merchants and mine owners, and diversifying their investments with the landed estates. The largest population sector was indigenous subsistence farmers, which predominantly inhabited the center and south.

New Spain was envisioned by the Spanish crown as a supplier of wealth to Iberia, which was accomplished through large silver mines and indigenous labor. A colonial economy to supply foodstuffs and products from ranching as well as a domestic textile industry meant that the economy provided much of its own needs, with international trade mainly conducted through colonial monopolies. Crown economic policies rattled American-born elites’ loyalty to Spain when in 1804, it instituted a policy to make mortgage holders pay immediately the principal on their loans, threatening the economic position of cash-strapped landowners.^[1]

The Independence of Mexico in 1821 was initially difficult for the country, with the loss of its supply of mercury from Spain in silver mines.^[2] Most of the patterns of wealth in the colonial era continued into the first half of the nineteenth century, with agriculture being the main economic activity through the labor of indigenous and mixed-race peasants. The mid-nineteenth-century Liberal Reforma (ca. 1850–1861; 1867–76) attempted to curtail the economic power of the Catholic Church and to modernize and industrialize the Mexican economy. Following the Reform War and the Second French intervention, the late nineteenth century found political stability and economic prosperity during the Porfiriato (1876–1911). Mexico was opened to foreign investment and, to a lesser extent, foreign workers. Foreign capital built railway networks, one of the keys for transforming the Mexican economy, by linking regions of Mexico and major cities and ports. As the construction of the railway bridge over a deep canyon at Metlac demonstrates, Mexico's topography was a barrier to economic development. The mining industry revived in the north of Mexico, and the petroleum industry developed in the north Gulf Coast states with foreign capitals.

Regional civil wars broke out in 1910 and lasted until 1920, known generally as the

dropped in the 1980s, Mexico experienced a severe financial crisis.

From the 1980s, Mexico implemented

Economy of New Spain, 1521–1821

Mexico's economy in the colonial period was based on resource extraction (mainly silver), on agriculture and ranching, and on trade, with manufacturing playing a minor role. In the immediate post-conquest period (1521–40), the dense indigenous and hierarchically organized central Mexican peoples were employed as labor and producers of tribute goods for Spanish conquerors. Indigenous communities' tribute and labor (but not land) were granted to individual conquerors in an arrangement called encomienda. Conquerors built private fortunes less from the plunder of conquest than from the labor and tribute and the acquisition of land in areas where they held encomiendas, translating that into long-term sustainable wealth.^[5][6]

The colonial landscape in central Mexico became a patchwork of different sized holdings by Spaniards and indigenous communities. As the crown began limiting the encomienda in the mid-sixteenth century to prevent the development of an independent seigneurial class through the New Laws, Spaniards who had become landowners acquired permanent and part-time labor from Indigenous and mixed-race workers. Although the encomienda was a major economic institution of the early period, it was gradually abandoned due to the drop in indigenous populations, economic growth and the expansion of the number of Spaniards in New Spain.^[7]

Mining

Silver became the motor of the Spanish colonial economy both in New Spain and in Peru. It was mined under license from the crown, with a fifth of the proceeds (

The largest silver deposits were found north of the zone of dense indigenous communities and Spanish settlement. Zacatecas and later Guanajuato became the most important centers of silver production, but there were many others, including in Parral (Chihuahua) and later strikes in San Luis Potosí, optimistically named after the Potosí silver mine of Peru.^[9] Spaniards established of cities in the mining region as well as agrarian enterprises supplying foodstuffs and material goods necessary for the mining economy. For Mexico, which did not have a vast supply of trees to use as fuel to extract silver from ore by high heat, the invention in 1554 of the patio process that used mercury to chemically extract the silver from ore was a breakthrough.^[11] Spain had a mercury mine in Almadén whose mercury was exported to Mexico. (Peru had its own local source of mercury at Huancavelica). The higher the proportion of mercury in the process meant the higher the extraction of silver.

The crown had a monopoly on mercury and set its price. During the

Wealth from Spanish mining fueled the transatlantic economy, with silver becoming the main precious metal in circulation worldwide. Although the northern mining did not itself become the main center of power in New Spain, the silver extracted there was the most important export from the colony.[17] The control that the royal mints exerted over the uniform weight and quality of silver bars and coins made Spanish silver the most accepted and trusted currency.

Many of the laborers in the silver mines were free wage earners drawn by high wages and the opportunity to acquire wealth for themselves through the pepena system

Agriculture and ranching

Although pre-Hispanic Mexico produced surpluses of corn (maize) and other crops for tribute and subsistence use, Spaniards began commercial agriculture, cultivating wheat, sugar, fruit trees, and even for a period,

.

The system of land tenure has been cited as one of the reasons that Mexico failed to develop economically during the colonial period, with large estates inefficiently organized and run and the "concentration of land ownership per se caused waste and misallocation of resources."^[24] These causes were posited before a plethora of studies of the hacienda and smaller agrarian enterprises as well as broader regional studies were done in the 1960s and 1970s. These studies of individual haciendas and regions over time postulate that hacienda owners were profit-seeking entrepreneurs. They had the advantage of economies of scale that smaller holders and indigenous villages did not in cultivation of grains, pulque, sugar, and sisal and in ranching, with cattle and sheep.^[25] Great haciendas did not completely dominate the agrarian sector, since there were products that could be efficiently produced by smaller holders and indigenous villages, such as fruits and vegetables, cochineal red dye, and animals that could be raised in confined spaces, such as pigs and chickens.^[26] Small holders also produced wine, cotton and tobacco.^[26] In the eighteenth century, the crown created a tobacco monopoly on both cultivation and manufacturing of tobacco products.^[27]

As Spanish agrarian enterprises developed, acquiring title to land became important. As the size of the indigenous labor force dropped and as the number of Spaniards seeking land and access to labor increased, a transitional labor institution called repartimiento ("allotment") developed, in which the crown allotted indigenous labor to Spaniards on a temporary basis. Many Spanish landowners found the system unsatisfactory since they could not count on receiving an allocation that suited their needs. The repartimiento for agriculture was abolished in 1632.^[28] Large-scale landed estates or haciendas developed, and most needed both a small permanent labor force supplemented by temporary labor at peak times, such as planting and harvesting.^[29][30]

Cattle ranching needed less labor than agriculture but did need sufficient grazing land for their herds to increase. As more Spaniards settled in the central areas of Mexico where there were already large numbers of indigenous settlements, the number of ranching enterprises declined, and ranching was pushed north. Northern Mexico was mainly dry and its indigenous population nomadic or semi-nomadic, allowing Spanish ranching activities to expand largely without competition. As mining areas developed in the north, Spanish haciendas and ranches supplied products from cattle, not just meat, but hides and tallow, for the silver mining areas. Spaniards also grazed sheep, which resulted in ecological decline since sheep cropped grass to its roots preventing regeneration.^[31] Central Mexico attracted a larger proportion of Spanish settlement and landed enterprises there shifted from mixed agriculture and ranching to solely agriculture. Ranching was more widespread in the north, with its vast expanses and little access to water. Spaniards imported seeds for production of wheat for their own consumption.

Both Spaniards and the indigenous produced native products commercially, particular the color-fast red dye

Cities, trade and transportation routes

Albert Durer

Cities had concentrations of crown officials, high ecclesiastical officials, merchants, and artisans, with the viceregal capital of Mexico City, having the largest. Mexico City was founded on the ruins of the Aztec capital of

) in Seville registered and regulated exports and imports as well as issuing licenses for Spaniards emigrating to the New World. Exports were silver and dyestuffs and imported were luxury goods from Europe, while a local economy of high bulk, low value products were produced in Mexico. Artisans and workers of various types provided goods and services to urban dwellers. In Mexico City and other Spanish settlements, the lack of a system of potable water meant that the services of water carriers supplied individual households.

A network of cities and towns developed, some were founded on previous indigenous city-states, (such as Mexico City) while secondary cities were established as provincial areas gained population because of economic activity. The main axis was from Veracruz, via the well-situated city of

henequen

(sisal).

Bad transportation was a major stumbling block to the movement of goods and people within Mexico, which had generally difficult topography. There were few paved roads and dirt tracks turned impassible during the rainy season. Rather than hauling goods by carts drawn by oxen or mules, the most common mode of transporting goods was via pack mules. Poor infrastructure was coupled with poor security, so that banditry was an impediment to the safe transport of people and goods. In the Northern area, the índios bárbaros or "uncivilized Indians" opposed settlement and travel.^[citation needed]

The eighteenth century saw New Spain increase the size and complexity of its economy. Silver remained the motor of the economy, and production increased even though few new mines came into production. The key to the increased production was the lowering of the price of mercury, an essential element in refining silver. The larger the amount of mercury used in refining, the greater pure silver was extracted from ore. Another important element for the eighteenth-century economic boom was the number of wealthy Mexicans who were involved in multiple enterprises as owners, investors, or creditors. Mining is an expensive and uncertain extractive enterprise needed large capital investments for digging and shoring up shafts as well as draining water as mines got deeper.

Elites invested their fortunes in real estate, mainly in rural enterprises and to a lesser extent urban properties, but often lived in nearby cities or the capital. The Roman Catholic Church functioned as a mortgage bank for elites. The Church itself accrued tremendous wealth, aided by the fact that as a corporation, its holdings were not broken up to distribute to heirs.

Crown policy and economic development

Crown policies generally impeded entrepreneurial activity in New Spain, through laws and regulations that were disincentives to the creation of new enterprises.^[35] There was no well-defined or enforceable set of property rights,^[36][37] but the crown claimed rights over subsoil resources, such as mining. The crown's lack of investment in a good system of paved roads made moving products to market insecure and expensive, so enterprises had a narrower reach for their products, particularly bulky agricultural products.^[38]

Although many enterprises, such as merchant houses and mining, were highly profitable, they were often family firms. The components of Roman Catholic Church had a considerable number of landed estates and the Church received income from the tithe, a ten percent tax on agricultural output. However, there were no laws that promoted "economies of scale through joint stock companies or corporations."^[37] There were corporate entities, particularly the Church and indigenous communities, but also corporate groups with privileges (fueros), such as miners and merchants who had separate courts and exemptions.^{[39][40][41][42]}

There was no equal standing before the law, given the exemptions of corporate entities (including indigenous communities) and legal distinctions between races. Only those defined as Spaniards, either peninsular- or American-born of legitimate birth had access to a variety of elite privileges such as civil office holding, ecclesiastical positions, but also entrance of women into convents, which necessitated a significant dowry. A convent for Indigenous women of "pure blood" was established in the eighteenth century. Indigenous men from the mid-sixteenth century had been barred from the priesthood, not only excluding them from empowerment in the spiritual realm, but also depriving them of the honor, prestige, and income that a priest could garner.

In the eighteenth century the

The most closely controlled commodity from New Spain (and Peru) was the production and transportation of silver. Crown officials monitored each step of the process, from licensing on those who developed mines, to transportation, to minting of uniform size and quality silver bars and coins.

The crown established monopolies in other commodities, most importantly mercury from Almadén, the key component in silver refining. But the crown also established monopolies over tobacco production and manufacturing. Guilds (gremios) restricted the practice of certain professions, such as those engaged in painting, gilded framer makers, music instrument makers, and others. Indigenous and mixed–race castas were considered a threat, producing quality products far more cheaply.[44]

The crown sought to control trade and emigration to its overseas territories via the

were busy when ships were in port, but they did not have large numbers of Spanish settlers in large part due to their disagreeable tropical climate.

Restricting trade put big merchant houses, largely family businesses, in a privileged position. A

Francisco de Goya

.

Internal trade in Mexico was hampered by taxes and levies by officials. The alcabala or sales tax was established in Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and was especially favored by the crown because in Spain it did not fall under the jurisdiction of the cortes or Spanish assembly.

Fluctuations in rainfall and harvests played havoc with the price of maize, which often resulted in civil unrest, such that the crown began establishing granaries (alhondigas) to moderate the fluctuations and to forestall rioting.

In a major move to tap what it thought was a major source of revenue, the crown in 1804 promulgated the Act of Consolidation (Consolidación de Vales Reales), in which the crown mandated that the church turn over its funds to the crown, which would in turn pay the church five percent on the principal.[55] Since the church was the major source of credit for hacendados, miners, and merchants, the new law meant that they had to pay the principal to the church immediately. For borrowers who counted on thirty or more year mortgages to repay the principal, the law was a threat to their economic survival. For conservative elements in New Spain that were loyal to the crown, this most recent change in policy was a blow. With the Napoleonic invasion of Iberia in 1808, which placed Napoleon's brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, an impact in New Spain was to suspend the implementation on the deleterious Act of Consolidation.^[56][57][58]

A Spanish intellectual Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos wrote a critique of the decline of Spain as an economic power in 1796 that contended the stagnation of Spanish agriculture was a major cause of Spain's economic problems. He recommended that the crown press for major changes in the agrarian sector, including the breakup of entailed estates, sale of common lands to individuals, and other instruments to make agriculture more profitable.^[59] In New Spain, the bishop-elect of the diocese of Michoacan, Manuel Abad y Queipo, was influenced by Jovellanos's work and proposed similar measures in Mexico. The bishop-elect's proposal for land reform in Mexico in the early nineteenth century, influenced by Jovellanos's from the late eighteenth century, had a direct impact on Mexican liberals seeking to make the agrarian sector more profitable. Abad y Queipo "fixed upon the inequitable distribution of property as the chief cause of New Spain's social squalor and advocated ownership of land as the chief remedy."^[60] At the end of the colonial era, land was concentrated in large haciendas and the vast number of peasants had insufficient land and the agrarian sector stagnated.

From the era of independence to the Liberal Reform, 1800–1855

Late colonial era and independence, 1800–1822

In the late colonial era, the Spanish crown had implemented what has been called a "revolution in government", which significantly realigned New Spain's administration with significant economic impacts.

that targeted Spaniards (both peninsular-born and American-born) and their properties. American-born Spaniards who might have opted for political independence retrenched and supported to conservative elements and the insurgency for independence was a small regional struggle. In 1812, Spanish liberals adopted a written constitution that established the crown as a constitutional monarch and limited the power of the Roman Catholic Church.

When the Bourbon monarchy was restored in 1814, Ferdinand VII swore allegiance to the constitution, but almost immediately reneged and returned to autocratic rule and asserted his rule being "by the grace of God" as the 8 real silver of coin minted in 1821 asserts.^[61] Anti-French forces, particularly the British, had enabled the return of Ferdinand VII to the throne. Ferdinand's armed forces were to be sent to its overseas empire to reverse the gains that many colonial regions had gained. However, the troops mutinied and prevented a renewed assertion of royal control in the Indies.^[62]

Silver 8 real coin of Ferdinand VII of Spain , 1821
Obverse FERDIN[ANDUS] VII DEI GRATIA 1821"Ferdinand VII by the Grace of God, 1821." Right profile of Ferdinand VII with cloak and laurel wreath.	Reverse HISPAN[IARUM] ET IND[IARUM] REX M[EXICO] 8 R[EALES] I I"King of the Spains and the Indies, Mexico [City Mint], 8 reales." Crowned Spanish arms between the Pillars of Hercules adorned with PLVS VLTRA motto.

In 1820, Spanish liberals staged a coup and forced Ferdinand to reinstate the

brought about Mexican independence in September 1821. Rather than the insurgency being a social revolution, in the end it allowed conservative forces in now independent Mexico to remain at the top of the social and economic system.

Although independence might have brought about rapid economic growth in Mexico since the Spanish crown was no longer the sovereign, Mexico's economic position in 1800 was far better than it would be for over the next hundred years.[63] In many ways the colonial economic system remained largely in place, despite the transition to formal political independence.

At the end of the colonial era, there was no national market and only poorly developed regional markets. The largest proportion of the population was poor, both peasants, who worked small holdings for subsistence or worked for low wages, and urban dwellers, most of whom were underemployed or unemployed, with only a small artisan sector. Although New Spain had been the major producer of silver and the greatest source of income for the Spanish crown, Mexico ceased to produce silver in any significant amounts until the late nineteenth century. Poor transportation, the disappearance of a ready source of mercury from Spain, and deterioration and destruction of deep mining shafts meant that the motor of Mexico's economy ground to a halt. A brief period of monarchic rule in the

.

Early republic to 1855

The early post-independence period in Mexican was organized as a federal republic under the

, which was the exclusive religious institution with spiritual power, but it was also a major holder of real estate and source of credit for Mexican elites. The Mexican military was also a stronger institution than the state, and intervened in politics on a regular basis. Local militias also continued to exist, with the potential for both enforcing order and creating disorder.

The new republic's situation did not promote economic growth and development.^[64][65] The British established a network of merchant houses in the major cities. However, according to Hilarie J. Heath, the results were bleak:

Trade was stagnant, imports did not pay, contraband drove prices down, debts private and public went unpaid, merchants suffered all manner of injustices and operated at the mercy of weak and corruptible governments, commercial houses skirted bankruptcy.^[66]

The early republic has often been called the "Age of Santa Anna," a military hero, participant in the coup ousting emperor Augustín I

during Mexico's brief post-independence monarchy. He was president of Mexico on multiple occasions, seeming to prefer having the job rather than doing the job. Mexico in this period was characterized by the collapse of silver exports, political instability, and foreign invasions and conflicts that lost Mexico a huge area of its North.

The social hierarchy in Mexico was modified in the early independence era, such that racial distinctions were eliminated and the formal bars to non-whites' upward mobility were eliminated. When the Mexican republic was established in 1824, noble titles were eliminated, however, special privileges (fueros) of two corporate groups, churchmen and the military, remained in force so that there were differential legal rights and access to courts. Elite Mexicans dominated the agrarian sector, owning large estates. With the Roman Catholic Church still the only religion and its economic power as a source of credit for elites, conservative landowners and the Church held tremendous economic power. The largest percentage of the Mexican population was engaged in subsistence agriculture and many were only marginally engaged in market activities. Foreigners dominated commerce and trade.^[67]

It was contended by Mexican liberals that the Catholic Church was an obstacle to Mexico's development through its economic activities. The Church was the beneficiary of the tithe, a ten percent tax on agricultural production, until its abolition in 1833. Church properties and Indigenous villages produced a significant proportion of agricultural output and were outside tithe collection, while private agriculturalists' costs were higher due to the tithe. It has been argued that an impact of the tithe was in fact to keep more land in the hands of the Church and Indigenous villages.^[68] As for the uses the Church put this ten percent of the agrarian output subject to it, it has been argued that rather being spent on "unproductive" activities that the Church had a greater liquidity that could be translated into credit for enterprises.^[69]

In the first half of the nineteenth century, obstacles to industrialization were largely internal, while in the second half largely external.^[70] Internal impediments to industrialization were due to Mexico's difficult topography and lack of secure and efficient transportation, remedied in the late nineteenth century by railroad construction. But the problems of entrepreneurship in the colonial period carried forward into the post-independence period. Internal tariffs, licensing for enterprises, special taxes, lack of legislation to promote joint-stock companies that protected investors, lack of enforcement to collect loans or enforce contracts, lack of patent protections, and the lack of a unified court system or legal framework to promote business made creating an enterprise a lengthy and fraught process.^[71]

The Mexican government could not count on revenues from silver mining to fund its operations. The exit of Spanish merchants involved in the transatlantic trade was also a blow to the Mexican economy. The division of the former viceroyalty into separate states of a federal system, all needed a source of revenue to function meant that internal tariffs impeded trade.^[72] For the weak federal government, a large source of revenue was the customs revenue on imports and exports. The Mexican government floated loans to foreign firms in the form of bonds. In 1824 the Mexican government floated a bond taken up by a London bank, B.A. Goldschmidt and Company; in 1825 Barclay, Herring, Richardson and Company of London not only loaned more money to the Mexican government, but opened a permanent office.^[73] The establishment of a permanent branch of Barclay, Herring, Richardson and Co. in Mexico in 1825 and then establishment of the Banco de Londres y Sud América in Mexico set the framework for foreign loans and investment in Mexico. The Banco de Londres issued paper money for private not public debt. Paper money was a first for Mexico which had long used silver coinage.^[74] After an extended civil war and foreign invasions, the late nineteenth century saw the more systematic growth of banking and foreign investment during the Porfiriato (1876–1911).

Faced with political disruptions, civil wars, unstable currency, and the constant threat of banditry in the countryside, most wealthy Mexicans invested their assets in the only stable productive enterprises that remained viable: large agricultural estates with access to credit from the Catholic Church. These entrepreneurs were later accused of preferring the symbolic wealth of tangible, secure, and unproductive property to the riskier and more difficult but innovative and potentially more profitable work of investing in industry, but the fact is that agriculture was the only marginally safe investment in times of such uncertainty. Furthermore, with low per capita income and a stagnant, shallow market, agriculture was not very profitable. The Church could have loaned money for industrial enterprises, the costs and risks of starting one in the circumstances of bad transportation and lack of consumer spending power or demand meant that agriculture was a more prudent investment.^[75]

In October, 1835, the

Despite obstacles to industrialization in the early post-independence period, cotton textiles produced in factories owned by Mexicans date from the 1830s in the central region.[79] The Banco de Avío did loan money to cotton textile factories during its existence, so that in the 1840s, there were close to 60 factories in Puebla and Mexico City to supply the most robust consumer market in the capital.^[80] In the colonial era, that region had seen the development of obrajes, small-scale workshops that wove cotton and woolen cloth.^[81]

In the early republic, other industries developed on a modest scale, including glass, paper, and beer brewing. Other enterprises produced leather footwear, hats, wood-working, tailoring, and bakeries, all of which were small-scale and designed to serve domestic, urban consumers within a narrow market.^[82] There were no factories to produce machines used in manufacturing, although there was a small iron and steel industry in the late 1870s before Porfirio Díaz's regime took hold after 1876.^[83]

Some of the factors that impeded Mexico's own industrial development were also barriers to penetration of British capital and goods in the early republic. Small-scale manufacturing in Mexico could make a modest profit in the regions where it existed, but with high transportation costs and protective import tariffs and internal transit tariffs, there was not enough profit for British to pursue that route.^[84]

Liberal reform, French intervention and Restored Republic, 1855–1876

The Liberals' ouster of conservative

.

The seeds of economic modernization were laid under the Restored Republic (1867–76), following the fall of the French-backed empire of Maximilian of Habsburg (1862–67). Mexican conservatives had invited Maximilian to be Mexico's monarch with the expectation that he would implement policies favorable to conservatives. Maximilian held liberal ideas which alienated his conservative supporters. The withdrawal of French military support for Maximilian, alienation of his conservative patrons, and post-Civil War support for Benito Juárez's republican government by the U.S. government precipitated Maximilian's fall. The conservatives' support for the foreign monarch destroyed their credibility and allowed the liberal republicans to dominate economic policy after 1867 until the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910.

President Benito Juárez (1857–72) sought to attract foreign capital to finance Mexico's economic modernization. His government revised the tax and tariff structure to revitalize the mining industry, and improved the transportation and communications infrastructure to allow fuller exploitation of the country's natural resources. The government issued contracts for construction of a new rail line northward to the United States, and in 1873 completed the commercially vital Mexico City–Veracruz railroad, begun in 1837 but disrupted by civil wars and the French invasion from 1850 to 1868. Protected by high tariffs, Mexico's textile industry doubled its production of processed items between 1854 and 1877. Overall, manufacturing grew using domestic capital, though only modestly.

Mexican per capita income had fallen during the period 1800 until sometime in the 1860s, but began recovering during the Restored Republic. However, it was during the Porfiriato (the rule of General and President Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911)) that per capita incomes climbed, finally reaching again the level of the late colonial era. "Between 1877 and 1910 national income per capita grew at an annual rate of 2.3 percent—extremely rapid growth by world standards, so fast indeed that per capita income more than doubled in thirty-three years."^[85]

Porfiriato, 1876–1911

When Díaz first came to power, the country was still recovering from a decade of civil war and foreign intervention, and the country was deeply in debt. Díaz saw investment from the United States and Europe as a way to build a modern and prosperous country.^[86] During the Porfiriato, Mexico underwent rapid but highly unequal growth. The phrase "order and progress" of the Díaz regime was shorthand for political order laying the groundwork for progress to transform and modernize Mexico on the model of Western Europe or the United States. The apparent political stability of the regime created a climate of trust for foreign and domestic entrepreneurs to invest in Mexico's modernization.^[87] Rural banditry, which had increased following the demobilization of republican force, was suppressed by Díaz, using the rural police force, rurales, often transporting them and their horses on trains. Other factors promoting a better economic situation were the elimination of local customs duties that had hindered domestic trade.

Changes in fundamental legal principles of ownership during the Porfiriato had a positive effect on foreign investors. During Spanish rule, the crown controlled subsoil rights of its territory so that silver mining, the motor of the colonial economy, was controlled by the crown with licenses to mining entrepreneurs was a privilege and not a right. The Mexican government changed the law to giving absolute subsoil rights to property owners. For foreign investors, protection of their property rights meant that mining and oil enterprises became much more attractive investments.

The earliest and most far reaching foreign investment was in the creation of a

The development of the

of 1938.

Mining silver continued as an enterprise, but copper emerged as a valuable mining resource as electricity became an important technological innovation. The creation of telephone and telegraph networks meant large-scale demand for copper wiring. Individual foreign entrepreneurs and companies purchased mining sites. Among the owners were

suppressed it.

Northern Mexico had the greatest concentration of mineral resources as well as closest proximity to a major market for foodstuffs, the United States.

Mexico was not a favored destination for European immigrants the way the United States, Argentina, and Canada were in the nineteenth century, creating expanded work forces there. Mexico's population in 1800 at 6 million was a million larger than that of the young U.S. republic, but in 1910 Mexico's population was 15 million while that of the U.S. was 92 million. Lack of slow natural increase and higher death rates coupled with lack of immigration meant that Mexico had a much smaller labor force in comparison.^[97] Americans moved to Mexico in the largest numbers, but most to pursue ranching and farming themselves, and were the largest group on foreign nationals in Mexico. In 1900, there were only 2800 British citizens living in Mexico, 16,000 Spaniards, 4,000 French, and 2,600 Germans.^[91] Foreign enterprises employed significant numbers of foreign workers, especially in skilled, higher paying positions keeping Mexicans in semi-skilled positions with much lower pay. The foreign workers did not generally know Spanish, so business transactions were done in the foreign industrialists' language. The cultural divide extended to religious affiliation (many were Protestants) and different attitudes "about authority and justice."^[98] There were few foreigner workers in the central Mexican textile industry, but many in mining and petroleum, where Mexicans had little or no experience with advanced technologies.^[99]

Mexican entrepreneurs also created large enterprises, many of which were vertically integrated. Some of these include steel, cement, glass, explosives, cigarettes, beer, soap, cotton and wool textiles, and paper.^[100] Yucatán underwent an agricultural boom with the creation of large-scale henequen (sisal) haciendas. Yucatán's capital of Mérida saw many elites build mansions based on the fortunes they made in henequen.^[101] The financing of Mexican domestic industry was accomplished through a small group of merchant-financiers, who could raise the capital for high start up costs of domestic enterprises, which included the importation of machinery. Although industries were created, the national market was yet to be built so that enterprises ran inefficiently well below their capacity.^[102] Overproduction was a problem since even a minor downturn in the economy meant the consumers with little buying power had to choose necessities over consumer-goods.

Under the surface of all this apparent economic prosperity and modernization, popular discontent was reaching the boiling point. The economic-political elite scarcely noticed the country's widespread dissatisfaction with the political stagnation of the Porfiriato, the increased demands for worker productivity during a time of stagnating or decreasing wages and deteriorating work conditions, the repression of worker's unions by the police and army, and the highly unequal distribution of wealth. When a political opposition to the Porfirian regime developed in 1910, following Díaz's initial statement that he would not run again for the presidency in 1910 and then reneging, there was considerable unrest.

As industrial enterprises grew in Mexico, workers organized to assert their rights. Strikes occurred in the mining industry, most notably at the U.S.-owned Cananea Consolidated Copper Company in 1906, in which Mexican workers protested that they were paid half what U.S. nations earned for the same work. U.S. marshals and citizens crossed from Arizona to Sonora to suppress the strike, resulting in 23 deaths. The violent incident was evidence that there was labor unrest in Mexico, something the Díaz regime sought to deny. The enforcement of labor discipline by U.S. nationals was publicly seen as a violation of Mexican sovereignty, but there were no consequences for the government of Sonora for permitting the foreigners' actions. The Díaz regime accused the radical Mexican Liberal Party of fomenting the strike. The significance of the strike is disputed, but one scholar considers it "an important benchmark for the Porfirian labor movement as well as the regime. It raised the social question in a dramatic fashion, and at the same time fused it with Mexican nationalism.^[103] In 1907, workers at the French-owned Río Blanco textile factory engaged in a dispute after being locked out from their factory. Díaz sent the Mexican army to suppress the action, resulting in loss of life of an unknown number of Mexicans. Before 1909 most workers were reformist and not anti-Díaz, but did seek government intervention on their behalf against foreign owners' unfair practices, particularly regarding wage differentials.^[104]

Signs of economic prosperity were apparent in the capital. The

Gallery

• 
  José Yves Limantour, Díaz's minister of finance, 1893–1911
• 
  Manuel Romero Rubio, Scientist and Díaz's father-in-law
• 
  Enrique Creel, northern banker and landowner, key figure in the Díaz regime
• 
  Francisco I. Madero, wealthy landowner who challenged Díaz for the presidency
• 
  Weetman Pearson

  , a Briton who made a fortune during the Porfiriato in railroads and oil
• 
  Edward L. Doheny, U.S. investor in Mexican oil
• 
  William Randolph Hearst, whose family owned millions of acres of land in northern Mexico

Era of the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1920

The outbreak of the Revolution in 1910 began as a political crisis over presidential succession and exploded into civil wars of movement in northern Mexico and guerrilla warfare in the peasant centers near Mexico City. The former working relationship between the Mexican government and foreign and domestic enterprises was nearing an end with the fall of the Díaz government, producing uncertainty for businesses. The upstart challenger to Porfirio Díaz in the 1910 election,

.

American-owned enterprises especially were targets during revolutionary violence, but there was generally loss of life and property damage in areas of conflict. Revolutionaries confiscated haciendas with livestock, machinery, and buildings. Railways used for troop movements in northern Mexico were hard hit by the destruction of tracks, bridges, and rolling stock. Significantly, the Gulf Coast petroleum installations were not damaged. They were a vital source of revenue for the

was one of the first acts of the faction named for the Constitution of 1857.

Constitution of 1917

that set a new framework for the Mexican political and economic systems

The

Article 27 of the Constitution empowered the state to expropriate private holdings if deemed in the national interest and returned subsoil rights to the state. It enshrined the right of the state could expropriate land and redistribute it to peasant cultivators. Although there could be a major roll back of changes in land tenure, the leader of the Constitutionalists and now President, Venustiano Carranza, was both a politician and large land owner, who was unwilling implement land reform. The state's power regarding subsoil rights meant that the mining and petroleum industries that were developed and owned by foreign industrialists now had less secure title to their enterprises. The industrial sector of Mexico evaded revolutionary violence and many Mexican and foreign industrialists remained in Mexico, but the uncertainty and risk of new investments in Mexican industry meant that it did not expand in the immediate post-Revolutionary period.^[108] An empowered labor movement with constitutionally guaranteed rights was a new factor industrialists also had to deal with. However, despite the protections of organized labor's rights to fair wages and working conditions, the constitution restricted laborers' ability to emigrate to the U.S. to work. It "required each Mexican to have a labor contract signed by municipal authorities and the consulate of the country where they intended to work."^[109] Since "U.S. law prohibited offering contracts to foreign laborers before they entered the United States," Mexicans migrating without a permission from Mexico did so illegally.^[110]

Consolidating the Revolution and the Great Depression, 1920–1940

In 1920, Sonoran general

, that guaranteed petroleum enterprises already built in Mexico. It also settled some claims between the U.S. and Mexico stemming from the Revolution. The treaty had an important impact for the Mexican government, since it paved the way for U.S. recognition of Obregón's government. The agreement not only normalized diplomatic relations, but also opened the way for U.S. military aid to the regime and gave Obregón the means to suppress a rebellion. As the Porfiriato had demonstrated, a strong government that could maintain order paved the way for other national benefits; however, the Constitution of 1917 sought to enshrine rights of groups that suffered under that authoritarian regime.

General and President

, a former Wall Street banker, brokered an agreement in 1929 between the Mexican government and the Cristeros, which restored peace.

The Mexican political system was again seen as fragile when in 1928 José de León Toral, a Cristero, assassinated president-elect Obregón, who would have returned to the presidency after a four-year hiatus. Calles stepped in to form in 1929 the Partido Nacional Revolucionario, the precursor to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, helped stabilize the political and economic system, creating a mechanism to manage conflicts and set the stage for more orderly presidential elections. Later that year, the U.S. stock market crashed and the Mexican economy suffered as the worldwide Great Depression took hold. It had already slowed in the 1920s, with investor pessimism and the fall of Mexican exports as well as capital flight. Even before the Great Crash of the U.S. stock market in 1929, Mexican export incomes fell between 1926 and 1928 from $334 million to $299 million (approximately 10%) and then fell even further as the Depression took hold, essentially collapsing.^[111] In 1932, GDP dropped 16%, after drops in 1927 of 5.9%, in 1928 5.4%, and 7.7%, such that there was a drop in GDP of 30.9% in a six-year period.^[112][113]

The Great Depression brought Mexico a sharp drop in national income and internal demand after 1929. A complicating factor for

The largest sector of the Mexican economy remained subsistence agriculture so that these fluctuations in the world market and the Mexican industrial sector did not affect all sectors of Mexico equally.

In the mid-1930s, Mexico's economy started to recover under the General and President

into one with sectoral representation of workers, peasants, the popular sector, and the Mexican army. The Partido de la Revolución Mexicana created the mechanism to manage conflicting economic and political groups and manage national elections.

Education had always been a key factor in the nation's development, with liberals enshrining secular, public education in the

traditionally trained lawyers and doctors, and in its colonial incarnation, it was a religiously affiliated university. UNAM has continued to be the main university for aspiring politicians to attend, at least as undergraduates, but the National Polytechnic Institute marked a significant step in reforming Mexican higher education.

The railroads had been nationalized in 1929 and 1930 under Cárdenas's predecessors, but his nationalization of the Mexican petroleum industry was a major move in 1938, which created Petroleos Mexicanos or

]

To foster industrial expansion, the administration of

Mexican Miracle

.

World War II and the Mexican miracle, 1940–1970

Mexico's inward-looking development strategy produced sustained economic growth of 3 to 4 percent and modest 3 percent inflation annually from the 1940s until the 1970s.^{[citation needed]} This growth was sustained by the government's increasing commitment to primary education for the general population from the late 1920s through the 1940s. The enrollment rates of the country's youth increased threefold during this period;^[121] consequently when this generation was employed by the 1940s their economic output was more productive. Additionally, the government fostered the development of consumer goods industries directed toward domestic markets by imposing high protective tariffs and other barriers to imports. The share of imports subject to licensing requirements rose from 28 percent in 1956 to an average of more than 60 percent during the 1960s and about 70 percent in the 1970s.^{[citation needed]} Industry accounted for 22 percent of total output in 1950, 24 percent in 1960, and 29 percent in 1970.^{[citation needed]} The share of total output arising from agriculture and other primary activities declined during the same period, while services stayed constant. The government promoted industrial expansion through public investment in agricultural, energy, and transportation infrastructure. Cities grew rapidly during these years, reflecting the shift of employment from agriculture to industry and services. The urban population increased at a high rate after 1940 (see Urban Society, ch. 2).

Miguel Alemán Lake

(center)

Although growth of the urban labor force exceeded even the growth rate of industrial employment, with surplus workers taking low-paying service jobs, many Mexican laborers migrated to the United States where wages were higher. During World War II, Mexico–United States relations had improved significantly from the previous three decades. The Bracero Program was set up with orderly migration flows were regulated by both governments. However, many Mexicans could not qualify for the program and migrated north illegally, without permission from their own government and with no sanction from U.S. authorities.^[122] In the post-war period as the U.S. economy boomed and as Mexico's entered a phase of rapid industrialization, the U.S. and Mexico cooperated closely on illegal border crossings by Mexicans. For the Mexican government, this loss of labor was "a shameful exposure of the failure of the Mexican Revolution to provide economic well-being for many of Mexico's citizens, but it also drained the country of one of its greatest natural resources, a cheap and flexible labor supply."^[123] The U.S. and Mexico cooperated closely to stop the flow, including the 1954 program called Operation Wetback.

In the years following

Mexico's strong economic performance continued into the 1960s, when GDP growth averaged about 7 percent overall and about 3 percent per capita. Consumer price inflation averaged only 3 percent annually. Manufacturing remained the country's dominant growth sector, expanding 7 percent annually and attracting considerable foreign investment. Mining grew at an annual rate of nearly 4 percent, trade at 6 percent, and agriculture at 3 percent. By 1970 Mexico had diversified its export base and become largely self-sufficient in food crops, steel, and most

]

Labor unions

Before the 1990s, unions in Mexico had been historically part of a state institutional system. From 1940 until the 1980s, during the worldwide spread of neoliberalism through the Washington Consensus, the Mexican unions did not operate independently, but instead as part of a state institutional system, largely controlled by the ruling party.^[126]

During these 40 years, the primary aim of the trade unions was not to benefit the workers, but to carry out the state's economic policy under their cosy relationship with the ruling party. This economic policy, which peaked in the 1950s and 60s with the so-called "

In the 1980s, Mexico began adhering to Washington Consensus policies, selling off state industries such as railroad and telecommunications to private industries. The new owners had an antagonistic attitude towards unions, which, accustomed to comfortable relationships with the state, were not prepared to fight back. A movement of new unions began to emerge under a more independent model, while the former institutionalized unions had become very corrupt, violent, and led by gangsters. From the 1990s onwards, this new model of independent unions prevailed, a number of them represented by the National Union of Workers / Unión Nacional de Trabajadores.^[126][127]

Current old institutions like the Oil Workers Union and the

In 2022, Sindicato independiente nacional de trabajadores trabajadoras de la industria automotriz, SINTTIA, a union backed by American and Canadian unions won a union representation election at a General Motors plant in the city of Silao. The Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), a union affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which had negotiated sweet-heart contracts with GM since the opening of the plant in 1995, and an allied "independent" union received only small percentages of the vote. A worker at the plant with 10 years service reported wages of 480 pesos ($23.27) for a 12-hour shift. At Volkswagen's plant in Puebla state, the union has negotiated average pay of 600 pesos ($29.15) a day for an eight-hour shift.^[129]

Deterioration in the 1970s

Although the Mexican economy maintained its rapid growth during most of the 1970s, it was progressively undermined by fiscal mismanagement and by a poor export industrial sector and a resulting deterioration of the investment climate. The GDP grew more than 6 percent annually during the administration of President

(1976–82). But economic activity fluctuated wildly during the decade, with spurts of rapid growth followed by sharp depressions in 1976 and 1982.

Fiscal expenditures combined with the

Although significant oil discoveries in 1976 allowed a temporary recovery, the windfall from petroleum sales also allowed continuation of Echeverría's fiscal policies. In the mid-1970s, Mexico went from being a net importer of oil and petroleum products to a significant exporter. Oil and petrochemicals became the economy's most dynamic growth sector. Rising oil income allowed the government to continue its expansionary fiscal policy, partially financed by higher foreign borrowing. Between 1978 and 1981, the economy grew more than 8 percent annually, as the government spent heavily on energy, transportation, and basic industries. Manufacturing output expanded during these years, growing by 8.2 percent in 1978, 9.3 percent in 1979, and 8.2 percent in 1980.^[citation needed]

This renewed growth rested on shaky foundations. Mexico's external indebtedness mounted, and the peso became increasingly overvalued, hurting non-oil exports in the late 1970s and leading to a second peso devaluation in 1980. Production of basic food crops stagnated and the population increase was skyrocketing, forcing Mexico in the early 1980s to become a net importer of foodstuffs. The portion of import categories subject to controls rose from 20 percent of the total in 1977 to 24 percent in 1979. The government raised tariffs concurrently to shield domestic producers from foreign competition, further hampering the modernization and competitiveness of Mexican industry.^{[citation needed]}

1982 crisis and recovery

The macroeconomic policies of the 1970s left Mexico's economy highly vulnerable to external conditions. These turned sharply against Mexico in the early 1980s, and caused the worst

—by the end of 1982 they were insufficient to cover three weeks' imports—forced the government to devalue the peso three times during 1982. Devaluation further fueled inflation and prevented short-term recovery, depressing real wages and increasing the private sector's burden in servicing its dollar-denominated debt. Interest payments on long-term debt alone were equal to 28 percent of export revenue. Cut off from additional credit, the government declared an involuntary moratorium on debt payments in August 1982, and the following month it announced the nationalization of Mexico's private banking system.

By late 1982, incoming President Miguel de la Madrid reduced public spending drastically and stimulated exports to balance the national accounts. Recovery was slow to materialize, however. The economy stagnated throughout the 1980s as a result of continuing negative terms of trade, high domestic interest rates, and scarce credit. Widespread fears that the government might fail to achieve fiscal balance and have to expand the money supply and raise taxes deterred private investment and encouraged massive capital flight that further increased inflationary pressures. The resulting reduction in domestic savings impeded growth, as did the government's rapid and drastic reductions in public investment and its raising of real domestic interest rates to deter capital flight.^{[citation needed]}

Parque Fundidora (Fundidora Park) with steel mill ruins, east of Monterrey

.

Mexico's GDP grew at an average rate of just 0.1 percent per year between 1983 and 1988, while inflation on an average of 100%. Public consumption grew at an average annual rate of less than 2 percent, and private consumption not at all. Total investment fell at an average annual rate of 4 percent and public investment at an 11 percent pace. Throughout the 1980s, the productive sectors of the economy contributed a decreasing share to GDP, while the services sectors expanded their share, reflecting the rapid growth of the informal economy and the change from good jobs to bad ones (services jobs). De la Madrid's stabilization strategy imposed high social costs: real

and to the United States.

By 1988 (de la Madrid's final year as President) inflation was at last under control, fiscal and monetary discipline attained, relative price adjustment achieved, structural reform in trade and public-sector management underway, and the economy was bound for recovery. But these positive developments were inadequate to attract foreign investment and return capital in sufficient quantities for sustained recovery. A shift in development strategy became necessary, predicated on the need to generate a net capital inflow.

In April 1989, President

of the economy. His first priority was to reduce Mexico's external debt; in mid-1989 the government reached agreement with its commercial bank creditors to reduce its medium- and long-term debt. The following year, Salinas took his next step toward higher capital inflows by lowering domestic borrowing costs, reprivatizing the banking system, and broaching the idea of a free-trade agreement with the United States. These announcements were soon followed by increased levels of capital repatriation and foreign investment.

Due to the financial crisis that took place in 1982, the total public investment on infrastructure plummeted from 12.5% of GDP to 3.5% in 1989. After rising during the early years of Salinas' presidency, the growth rate of real GDP began to slow during the early 1990s. During 1993 the economy grew by a negligible amount, but growth rebounded to almost 4 percent during 1994, as fiscal and monetary policy were relaxed and foreign investment was bolstered by United States ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In 1994 the commerce and services sectors accounted for 22 percent of Mexico's total GDP. Manufacturing followed at 20 percent; transport and communications at 10 percent; agriculture, forestry, and fishing at 8 percent; construction at 5 percent; mining at 2 percent; and electricity, gas, and water at 2 percent (services 80%, industry and mining 12%, agriculture 8%). Some two-thirds of GDP in 1994 (67 percent) was spent on private consumption, 11 percent on public consumption, and 22 percent on fixed investment. During 1994 private consumption rose by 4 percent, public consumption by 2 percent, public investment by 9 percent, and private investment by 8 percent.^{[citation needed]}

NAFTA, economic crisis, and recovery

The last years of the Salinas administration were turbulent ones. In 1993 when Mexico experienced hyperinflation, Salinas stripped three zeros from the peso, creating a parity of $1 new peso for $1000 of the old ones. On 1 January 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect and on the same day, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas took several small towns, belying Mexico's assurances that the government created the conditions for stability. In March 1994, the Institutional Revolutionary Party's presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated and was replaced by Ernesto Zedillo. Salinas was loath to devalue the currency in the final months of his term, leaving to his successor to deal with the economic consequences. In December 1994 Zedillo was inaugurated. The Mexican peso crisis caused the economy to contract by an estimated 7 percent during 1995. Investment and consumption both fell sharply, the latter by some 10 percent. Agriculture, livestock, and fishing contracted by 4 percent; mining by 1 percent; manufacturing by 6 percent; construction by 22 percent; and transport, storage, and communications by 2 percent. The only sector to register positive growth was utilities, which expanded by 3 percent.

The Fobaproa contingencies fund, applied during the peso crisis to protect Mexican banks, became a subject of controversy.^[131] By 1996 Mexican government and independent analysts saw signs that the country had begun to emerge from its economic recession. The economy contracted by 1 percent during the first quarter of 1996. The Mexican government reported growth of 7 percent for the second quarter, and the Union Bank of Switzerland forecast economic growth of 4 percent for 1996.^{[citation needed]}

The USMCA Trade Agreement

In 2018 negotiations opened between the Donald Trump administration of the United States, the government of Mexico, and the government of Canada to revise and update provisions of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. As of April 2020, Canada and Mexico have notified the U.S. that they are ready to implement the agreement.^[132]

Current trade

Mexico is an integral part of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the U.S. is its top trading partner. As of 2017, Mexico's biggest imports (in U.S. dollars) came from the U.S. $307Billion; Canada $22B; China $8.98B; Germany $8.83; and Japan $5.57. Its biggest imports came from the U.S. $181B; China $52.1B; Germany $14.9B; Japan $14.8B, and South Korea $10.9B. "The economy of Mexico has an Economic Complexity Index (ECI) of 1.1 making it the 21st most complex country. Mexico exports 182 products with revealed comparative advantage (meaning that its share of global exports is larger than what would be expected from the size of its export economy and from the size of a product's global market)."^[133]

Peso–US dollar exchange 1970–2018

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2022)

President	Party	Years	Exchange rate at beginning	at end	Difference	% devaluation
Luis Echeverría Álvarez	PRI	1970–1976	$12.50	$22.69	$10.19	82%
José Lopez Portillo	PRI	1976–1982	$22.69	$150.29	$127.60	562%
Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado	PRI	1982–1988	$150.29	$2,289.58	$2,132.71	1552%
Carlos Salinas de Gortari	PRI	1988–1994	$2,289.58	$3,410	$892.00	36%
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León	PRI	1994–2000	$3,410	$9.360	$3,400.64	180%
Vicente Fox Quezada	PAN	2000–2006	$9.360	$10.880	$1.45	15%
Felipe Calderón Hinojosa	PAN	(2006–2012)	$10.900	$12.50	$1.60	15%
Enrique Peña Nieto	PRI	(2012–2018)	$12.50	$18.86 Mid-market rates: 2018-10-13	-	-

See also

• Corruption Perceptions Index
• Economy of Mexico
• Economy of Prehispanic Mexico
• Latin American economy
• Economic history of Latin America

References

Further reading

Colonial and post-independence

• Tutino, John. The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism, a Nation, and World History, 1500-2000. Princeton University Press 2018.
  ISBN 978-0-691-17436-5
• Salvucci, Richard . “Mexico: Economic History” EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. December 27, 2018. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-history-of-mexico/

Colonial economy

• ISBN 978-0804736633
• Altman, Ida and
  ISBN 978-0879031107
• Altman, Ida, Sarah Cline, and Javier Pescador. The Early History of Greater Mexico. Pearson 2003.
  ISBN 978-0130915436
• Bakewell, Peter. Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico: Zacatecas, 1546–1700. New York: Cambridge University Press 1971.
• Barrett, Ward. The Sugar Haciendas of the Marqueses del Valle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1970.
• Baskes, Jeremy. Indians, Merchants, and Markets: A Reinterpretation of the Repartimiento and Spanish-Indian Economic Relations in Colonial Oaxaca, 1750–1821. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2000.
  ISBN 978-0804735124
• Booker, Jackie R. Veracruz Merchants, 1770–1829: A Mercantile Elite in Late Bourbon and Early Independent Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press 1988.
• Borah, Woodrow. Early Colonial Trade and Navigation between Mexico and Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press 1954.
• Borah, Woodrow. Silk Raising in Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press 1943.
• ISBN 978-0521102360
• D.A. Brading Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763–1810. New York: Cambridge University Press 1971.
• D.A. Brading "Mexican Silver Mining in the Eighteenth Century: The Revival of Zacatecas." Hispanic American Historical Review 50(2)1970: 665–81.
• D.A. Brading and Harry Cross. "Colonial Silver Mining: Mexico and Peru," Hispanic American Historical Review, 52:4(1972): 545–79.
• Chowning, Margaret. "The Consolidación de Vales Reales in the Bishopric of Michoacan," Hispanic American Historical Review 69:3(1989) 451–78.
• Cline, Sarah.The Book of Tributes. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications 1993.
  ISBN 0-87903-082-8
• Costeloe, Michael P. Church Wealth in Mexico: A Study of the "Juzgado de Capellanías" in the Archbishopric of Mexico, 1800–1856. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1967.
• Costeloe, Michael P. Bubbles and Bonanzas: British Investors and Investments in Mexico, 1824-1860. Lexington Books, 2011.
  ISBN 978-0739151198
• Deans-Smith, Susan. Bureaucrats, Planters, and Workers: The Making of the Tobacco Monopoly in Bourbon Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press 1992.
  ISBN 978-0292707863
• Garner, Richard and Spiro E. Stafanou. Economic Growth and Change in Bourbon Mexico. Gainesville: University of Florida Press 1993.
  ISBN 978-0813011837
• ISBN 978-0804709125
• Gutierrez Brockington, Lolita. The Leverage of Labor. Managing the Cortés Haciendas in Tehuantepec, 1588–1688. Durham: Duke University Press 1989.
  ISBN 978-0822308843
• Hamnett, Brian R. Politics and Trade in Southern Mexico, 1750–1812. New York: Cambridge University Press 1971.
  ISBN 978-0521078603
• Haskett, Robert S. "Our Suffering with the Taxco Tribute": Involuntary Mine Labor and Indigenous Society in Central New Spain," Hispanic American Historical Review 71:3(1991) 447–75.
• Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555. Austin: University of Texas Press 1991.
• Hoberman, Louisa Schell. Mexico's Merchant Elite, 1590–1660. Durham: Duke University Press 1991.
• Kicza, John E. Colonial Entrepreneurs: Families and Business in Bourbon Mexico City. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1983.
  ISBN 978-0826306555
• Ladd, Doris M. The Making of a Strike: Mexican Silver Workers' Struggles in Real del Monte, 1766–1775. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1988.
• Lavrin, Asunción "The Execution of the Law of Consolidación in New Spain: Economic Aims and Results." Hispanic American Historical Review Vol. 53, No. 1 (Feb., 1973), pp. 27–49 Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2512521
• Martin, Cheryl English. Rural Society in Colonial Morelos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1985.
• Melville, Elinor G.K. A Plague of Sheep: Environmental Consequences of the Conquest of Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997.
  ISBN 978-0521574488
• Ouweneel, Arij. Shadows over Anahuac: An Ecological Interpretation of Crisis and Development in Central Mexico, 1730–1800. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1997.
  ISBN 978-0826317315
• Patch, Robert W. "Agrarian Change in Eighteenth-Century Yucatan," Hispanic American Historical Review 65:1(1985)21-49.
• Riley, G. Michael. Fernando Cortés and the Marquesado in Morelos, 1522–1547. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1973.
  ISBN 978-0826302632
  .
• Salvucci, Richard J. Textiles and Capitalism in Mexico: an Economic History of the Obrajes, 1539–1840. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1987.
  ISBN 978-0691077499
• Sampat Assadourian, Carlos. "The Colonial Economy: The Transfer of the European System of Production to New Spain and Peru," Journal of Latin American Studies Vol. 24, Quincentenary Supplement. (1992), pp. 55–68.
• Schurz, William Lytle. The Manila Galleon. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. 1959.
• Schwaller, John Frederick. The Origins of Church Wealth in Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1985.
• Super, John C. "Querétaro Obrajes: Industry and Society in Provincial Mexico, 1600–1810," Hispanic American Historical Review 56 (1976): 197–216.
• Swann, Michael M. Migrants in the Mexican North. Mobility, Economy, and Society in a Colonial World. Boulder: Westview Press 1989.
• ISBN 978-0804707961
• Thomson, Guy P.C. Puebla de los Angeles. Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700–1850. Boulder: Westview Press 1989.
• Tutino, John. "Life and Labor in North Mexican Haciendas: The Querétaro-San Luis Potosí Region, 1775-1810," in Elsa Cecilia Frost, Michael C. Meyer, and Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, Labor and Laborers in Mexican History. Mexico and Tucson: El Colegio de México and University of Arizona Press 1979.
• ISBN 978-0742553569
• West, Robert C. The Mining Community in Northern New Spain: The Parral Mining District. Berkeley: University of California Press 1949.

Post-independence economy

• Alegre, Robert F. Railroad Radicals in Cold War Mexico: Gender, Class, and Memory. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2014.
• Anderson, Rodney. Outcasts in Their Own Land: Mexican Industrial workers, 1906–1911. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University 1976.
• Armstrong, Christopher and H.V. Nelles. "A Curious Capital Flow: Canadian Investment in Mexico, 1902–1910," Business History Review 58(1984).
• Babb, Sarah. Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2001.
• Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1888). History of Mexico. Vol. 6.
• Beatty, Edward. Institutions and Investment: The Political Basis of Industrialization in Mexico Before 1911. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2001.
• Bernstein, Marvin D. The Mexican Mining Industry, 1890–1950: A Study of the Interaction of Politics, Economics, and Technology. Albany 1964.
• Bortz, Jeffrey L. and Stephen Haber, eds. The Mexican Economy, 1870-1930: Essays on the Economic History of Institutions, Revolution, and Growth. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2002.
• Brown, Jonathan C. "Foreign and Native-Born Workers in Porfirian Mexico," American Historical Review vol. 98(June 1993), pp. 786–818.
• Brown, Jonathan C. "Foreign Investment and Domestic Politics: British Development of Mexican Petroleum during the Porfiriato," Business History Review 61(1987), 387–416.
• Brown, Jonathan C. Oil and Revolution in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press 1992.
• Brunker, Steven. Creating Mexican Consumer Culture in the Age of Porfirio Diaz. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2012.
  ISBN 978-0-8263-4454-0
• Challú, Amílcar E.; Solares, Israel García; Gómez‐Galvarriato, Aurora (2024). "Rent–wage inequality in Mexico City, 1770–1930". The Economic History Review.
• Coatsworth, John H. Growth Against Development: The Economic Impact of Railroads in Porfirian Mexico. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press 1981.
• Coatsworth, John H. "Obstacles to Economic Growth in Nineteenth-Century Mexico", American Historical Review, 83 (February 1978).
• Coatsworth, John H. "Economic and Institutional Trajectories in Nineteenth-Century Latin America," in Latin America and the World Economy since 1800, John H. Coatsworth and Alan M. Taylor, eds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University 1998.
• Cosío Villegas, Daniel, et al. Historia Moderna de México, 7 vols. El Porfiriato: La vida económica, 2 parts. Mexico 1965.
• Fowler-Salamini, Heather. Working Women, Entrepreneurs, and the Mexican Revolution: The Coffee Culture of Córdoba, Veracruz. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2013.
• González Navarro, Moisés. Las huelgas textiles en el porfiriato. Puebla, Mexico 1970.
• Haber, Stephen H. "Assessing the Obstacles to Industrialisation: The Mexican Economy, 1830–1940," Journal of Latin American Studies 24(1992).
• Haber, Stephen H. Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of Mexico, 1890–1940. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1989.
• Haber, Stephen H., Armando Razo, and Noel Maurer. The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876-1929. New York: Cambridge University Press 2003.
• Hamilton, Nora. The Limits of State Autonomy: Post-Revolutionary Mexico. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982.
• Hamilton, Nora. "Banking and Finance, 1910–40" in Encyclopedia of Mexico, vol. 1 pp. 135–138. Chicago: Fitzroy and Dearborn, 1996.
• Knight, Alan. "The Working Class and the Mexican Revolution, c. 1900-1920," Journal of Latin American Studies, 16 (1984).
• Kouri, Emilio. A Pueblo Divided: Business, Property, and Community in Papantla, Mexico. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2004.
• Ludlow, Leonor and Carlos Marichal, eds. Banco y Poder en México, 1800–1925. Mexico: Grijalbo 1986.
• Lurtz, Casey Marina. From the Grounds Up: Building an Export Economy in Southern Mexico. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019.
  ISBN 978-1-5036-0389-9
  .
• Maurer, Noel. The Power and the Money: The Mexican Financial System, 1876-1928. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2002.
• Maxfield, Sylvia. Governing Capital: International Finance and Mexican Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1990.
• McCaleb, Walter Flavius (1920). Present and Past Banking in Mexico. Harper & Brothers.
• Miller, Richard Ulric. "American Railroad Unions and the National Railways of Mexico: An Exercise in Nineteenth-Century Manifest Destiny," Labor History 15(1974).
• Moore, O. Ernesto. Evolución de las instituciones financieras en México. Mexico: Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinomericanos 1963.
• Pilcher, Jeffrey. The Sausage Rebellion: Public Health, Private Enterprise, and Meat in Mexico City, 1890-1917. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2006.
  ISBN 978-0-8263-3796-2
• Pletcher, David M. "Mexico Opens the Door to American Capital, 1877–1880", The Americas XVI (1959) 1–14.
• Pletcher, David M. Rails, Mines, and Progress: Seven American Promoters in Mexico, 1867–1911. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1958.
• Potash, Robert A. Mexican Government and Industrial Development: The Banco de Avío. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 1983.
• Ramos Escandón, Carmen. La industria textil y el movimiento obrero en México. Mexico city 1988.
• Razo, Armando and Stephen Haber, "The Rate of Growth of Productivity in Mexico, 1850-1933: Evidence from the Cotton Textile Industry," Journal of Latin American Studies 30, 3 (1998), 481-517.
• Reynolds, Clark W. The Mexican Economy: Twentieth Century Structure and Growth. New Haven: Yale University Press 1970.
• Schell, William, Jr. "Money as Commodity: Mexico's Conversion to the Gold Standard, 1905." Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 12:1 (1996).
• Schoonover, Thomas. "Dollars Over Dominion: United States Economic Interests in Mexico, 1861-67," Pacific Historical Review vol 45, No. 1 (Feb. 1976), pp. 23–45.
• Smith, Robert Freeman. "The Formation and Development of the International Bankers Committee in Mexico." Journal of Economic History 23 (December 1963).
• Topik, Steven. "the Economic Role of the State in Liberal Regimes: Brazil and Mexico Compared, 1888–1910," in Guiding the Invisible Hand: Economic Liberalism and the State in Latin American History, Joseph L. Love and Nils Jacobsen, eds. New York 1988, 117–44.
• Tutino, John. Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajío and Spanish North America. Durham: Duke University Press 2011.
  ISBN 978-0822349891
• Tutino, John. The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism,, a Nation, and World History, 1500-2000. Princeton University Press 2017.
  ISBN 978-0691174365
• Wionczek, Miguel S. "Industrialization, Foreign Capital, and Technology Transfer: The Mexican Experience 1930–85," Development and Change (SAGE, London, Beverly Hills, and New Delhi) Vol. 17 (1986), 283–302.
• Zebadúa, Emilio. Banqueros y revolucionarios: La soberania financiera de México. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económico 1994.

External links

• Mexican Economic Crisis (80s) from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
• Products of Mexico and Central America from the early mid-20th century