The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible
Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876–1929. By
Stephen Haber, Armando Razo, and Noel Maurer. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2003. 408p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.
Stephen Haber, Armando Razo, and Noel Maurer provide a detailed,
theoretically rich examination of the interplay between political chaos
and economic growth in Mexico. Why did Mexico's economy continue
to grow through a series of civil wars, coups, and outside
interventions? More generally, what conditions lead to robust growth
under political instability? Political scientists, economists, and
others have searched for, and failed to find, a consistent link between
political instability and economic failure. These authors develop an
argument on the conditions under which instability and robust economic
growth go hand in hand, using the years before, during, and after
Mexico's chaotic revolution as their case study.