Institutional Reform and Manpower Development in Mexico

• Published in: Journal of economic issues Vol. 17; no. 1; pp. 17 - 33
• Main Author: Street, James H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lincoln Routledge 01.03.1983; Department of Economics, California State University; Dept. of Economics, California State University; Association for Evolutionary Economics
• Subjects: Agricultural development; Agricultural production; Children; Culture; Development; Economic development; Education; Formal education; Higher education; Institutional; Manpower utilization; Mexico; Population; Programs; Reforms; State universities; Subsistence farming; Technology policy; Universities; Wheat; Mexico
• ISSN: 0021-3624; 1946-326X
• DOI: 10.1080/00213624.1983.11504087

The government of Mexico is committed to educational advancement and major transformation of industrial, agricultural, and energy sectors of the economy. Agricultural success has been the most impressive. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, corn yields per hectare improved 52%, and wheat production fared even better, with average yield exceeding that of the US. These programs succeeded because of superior staffs schooled in genetics, microbiology, and plant pathology. While fundamental research originated in other countries, the breeding process quickly incorporated native plant stocks in order to selectively breed under Mexican environmental conditions. The US played a key role, too, helping establish research centers with close ties to international sources of new knowledge. These facilities made a full-time scientific career practical in Mexico and discouraged a brain drain. Mexico is experiencing a new technological era, and institutional reform must lead the way to further advances in other sectors of society. An overhaul of the education system will be a crucial part of that institutional reform.