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‘Putting Mexico on its feet again’: the Kemmerer mission in Mexico, 1917–1931

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2019

Gianandrea Nodari
Gianandrea Nodari*
Affiliation:
Autonomous University of Baja California
*
G. Nodari, Associate Professor, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Tijuana, México, and Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC; email: gianandrea.nodari@uabc.edu.mx.
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Abstract

This article scrutinizes the results of the mission carried out by Edwin Walter Kemmerer in Mexico during 1917. Based on unpublished materials from his private archive, as well as other Mexican archives, this article analyses the process of approval, installation and implementation of the reforms introduced by Kemmerer's mission in Mexico. It is argued that Kemmerer's work as a financial advisor for Venustiano Carranza was not a total failure, as the existing literature on the subject claims. Indeed, on the eve of Great Depression, Mexico exhibited the main institutional features of ‘Kemmererized’ countries: a central bank, the gold standard and a centralized tax system. It is also suggested that the economic knowledge brought into the country by the money doctor moulded the ideological foundation of the new financial and economic elite of revolutionary Mexico.

Keywords

Edwin Walter KemmererMexicomoney doctorsmonetary regime

JEL classification

N46: Latin America • Caribbean N16: Latin America • Caribbean N26: Latin America • Caribbean
Type
Articles
Information
Financial History Review , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , August 2019 , pp. 223 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V. 2019 

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Footnotes

This article is an extension of chapter 3 of my PhD dissertation on the history of the gold standard in Mexico. I am grateful to Graciela Márquez Colín, Aurora Gómez Galvarriato, Sergio Silva Castañeda, Carlos Marichal and Pablo Martín Aceña for their comments. I also thank the editor, Rui Pedro Esteves, and two anonymous reviewers for their many valuable suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. All remaining errors are of course mine.

References

Sources

Archivo de Manuel Gómez Morín, Mexico CityGoogle Scholar
Archivo de la Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico CityGoogle Scholar
Archivo José Yves Limantour, Mexico CityGoogle Scholar
Bank of England Archive, LondonGoogle Scholar
Edwin Kemmerer Papers, PrincetonGoogle Scholar
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Archive, New YorkGoogle Scholar
Records of the US Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Mexico, Washington, DCGoogle Scholar
El Economista MexicanoGoogle Scholar
ExcelsiorGoogle Scholar
Los Angeles TimesGoogle Scholar
Memorias de la Secretaria de Hacienda y Crédito PúblicoGoogle Scholar
New York TribuneGoogle Scholar
The Bankers' MagazineGoogle Scholar
Wall Street JournalGoogle Scholar

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