Revolución y desarrollo económico: el caso de la minería

Abstract

This article examines the behavior of the principal indicators of the mining industry in the first half of the twentieth century, to show that the long cycle of prosperity that began in the Porfiriato, ended in the early years of the 1940’s. This cycle clearly belongs to the period of forward growth, and it demonstrates a remarkable continuity, in spite of three crises followed by rapid recovery. The problem proposed here is whether the end of this cycle, and equally so, the secondary role that mining quickly came to play in economic development can be sufficiently explained in strictly economic terms. An examination of the legislation related to the mining sector, and above all the fiscal connections and interactions, authorize the supposition that the actions of the federal government operated as a push factor in this process. The extent to which it is impossible to explain these fiscal norms without reference to the political and social transformations brought about by the revolution, affirms that the Mexican revolution did indeed have important economic consequences, at least for the mining sector.