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We survey the literature on the Risk Augmented Mincer equation that seeks to estimate the compensation for uncertainty in the future wage to be earned after completing an education. There is wide empirical support for the predicted positive effect of wage variance and the negative effect of wage skew. We discuss robustness of the findings across specifications, potential bias from unobserved heterogeneity and selectivity and consider the core issue of students' information on benefits from education.

Commenting on the Mexican Revolution in 1938, Trotsky argued that the country might achieve “national independence,” understood as a break with dependency relations. Whether this might occur depended – Trotsky continued – on “international factors.” Though not engaging with Mexico, Antonio Gramsci made a similar theoretical point. It is hence from this perspective that this chapter analyses the Mexican Revolution, asking whether it led to a break in dependency relations and the attainment of “national independence” or what I refer to as “relative geopolitical autonomy.” Presenting a framework of analysis largely based on the work of Gramsci that highlights its continuity with the thought of Marx, the chapter will answer negatively to this question. The chapter starts from the idea that Porfirio Díaz’s regime was unable to adapt the economic structure (still pre-capitalist) to the complex superstructures (capitalist), that is, to realize an historic bloc. It would be this job that the emergent Mexican bourgeoisie sought to finish. However, the situation is complicated by the powerful emergence of social movements from below, constituted largely by landless peasants, and to a lesser extent, the industrial proletariat. I will therefore argue that the revolution has been both “passive” and “bounded.” The term passive revolution will be applied to the last phase of the revolution as the emerging bourgeoisie successfully coopted the demands of the popular masses thereby “passivizing” them. But crucially, the revolution was also “bounded” because international factors, and especially US influence, played a conditioning role throughout the revolutionary process. At the same time, it would be the very “passive” nature of the revolution that would contribute to the reproduction of relations of dependency. Hence the chapter concludes that the period Trotsky commented upon (the Cárdenas period) is the highest level of “independence” Mexico achieved, only to decrease again over the years.

This chapter is about an analysis and reflection on the actions, programs, and regulatory frameworks of the Mexican government for the promotion of entrepreneurial activity during the twentieth century. A documentary review is presented based mainly on the presidential reports available in the virtual legal library of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Center for Documentation, Information, and Analysis of the Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados), and various publications of experts on economic history, considering the twentieth century: from the year 1900 with the end of the Porfiriato until the six-year term of Ernesto Zedillo that ended in 2000. The public policies of these 100 years were reviewed and based on this, was analyzed the importance assigned to the creation, development, and consolidation of companies and their importance in public policies. Special emphasis is given to instruments for the creation of new businesses or the development and strengthening of small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Since the early modern age, the debt of the State was a constant source for concern to the Spanish governments. Episodes of defaults caused by enormous expenditure to keep the Empire slowly faded out until a certain reorganization of public finance was attained in the central decades of the nineteenth century. The core idea that finance ministers and economists, in general, had at that time was to balance the public budget controlling expenses, in order to handle the problem of public debt. However, alternative views on government finance existed. Focusing on a crucial period for the consolidation of Spanish liberal regime and its public finance, this chapter shows that, among a predominant concern for reducing public expenditure as the best way to stabilize the economy and promote economic growth, the character of Luis María Pastor emerges to support government expansionary policies financed with credit. Far from fearing deficit, Pastor, one of the leaders of the Spanish liberal school of economic thought, believed that investment in infrastructures financed through debt was the key to economic growth. Through a multiplicative effect, a program of public investment would enhance economic growth, eventually solving the long-term insufficiency of Spanish finance. This gives evidence that ideas on public finance of classical liberal economists were far from uniform, contributing to a more precise view on the body of doctrines of this school.

Mexico is a large, culturally and linguistically diverse country. More than half of its population lives below the poverty line, a fifth is of indigenous origin, and 5% have a disability. This chapter offers a brief description of the general characteristics of the country and the legislative changes toward inclusion and presents the status and progress toward the 2030 Agenda educational goals toward inclusive education. Although efforts have been made to improve the quality of education and inclusion, the country's complexities: poverty, cultural diversity, and political adjustments, among others, have held back progress, as will be explained in this chapter.

This essay explores the critical vision of Francisco Barrera Lavalle about the Mexico’s Monetary Reform of 1905. In his critique, Barrera inserts an argument about the nature of the balance of payments in the Mexican economy: the disequilibria in Mexico’s trade balance were structurally recurrent given the characteristics of what the country exports: commodities and raw materials. Barrera believed that the authorities made the mistake of overvaluing the peso, assigning it a value higher than what silver currency was worth at the time on international markets. Barrera also dismissed the idea that monetary stability could be achieved by suspending the free coinage of silver currency. Finally, Barrera held that banks should be obligated to pay their banknotes in gold, as they were in Great Britain and in the United States, not in silver coins.