Search

This paper presents sufficient conditions for a multiattribute utility function to be either multiplicative or additive. The number of requisite assumptions to imply the main result is equal to the number of attributes. Because the assumptions involve only trade-offs between two attributes at a time or lotteries over one attribute, it is reasonable to expect that decision makers can ascertain whether these assumptions are appropriate for their specific problems. Procedures are given for verifying the assumptions and assessing the resulting utility functions. The paper concludes with a sketch of a recent application of the results to a six-attribute problem relating to the development of Mexico City's airport facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to isolate the determinants of fertility in Mexico. Of the variables included, two are significant in accounting for differences in the level of completed fertility in the 32 "states" in 1970. They are the share of the labor force in agriculture, which is directly related to fertility, and the percentage of the population speaking an indigenous language, which shows an inverse relationship.The most important factors acting to reduce total fertility rates over time are increases in life expectancy and declines in the share of the labor force in agriculture. However, based on the estimated linear relationship, these two variables by themselves are not adequate to achieve a rapid decline in fertility in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present a new approach to measuring efficiency of land-holding institutions. The measure is based on a two-sector model of the agricultural economy. In one, markets allocate resources to their productive tasks. In the other, land is legally distinguished from other resources and is assigned in accordance with specific administrative rules. The special land-use rules partially insulate the two sectors from one another and permit important differences to be perpetuated. The effect of these differences is manifested in the economic yield on productive resources employed in the two sectors, it is the object of this study to measure the differences in these yields in such a way that they reveal comparative efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to describe and to summarize by means of a typological analysis the salient characteristics of the population in the United States--Mexican border area. The area under focus consists of the five southwestern states for which data on Spanish surnames were available and the six Mexican states adjacent to the international boundary. Distributions of Spanish surname persons are plotted for cities and minor civil divisions in the five southwestern states. The populations on both sides of the border are examined with respect to selected attributes. Demographic comparisons are made between Spanish surname and non-Spanish surname populations of the five southwestern states. This is followed by a typological analysis summarizing the characteristics of the relevant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a restudy of Tepoztlán culture and criticizes the folk-urban hypothesis. Certainly there are phenomena that represent social disorganization; but the term has been used so commonly for social reorganization that perhaps it should be abolished. The study of man has demonstrated few things more clearly than the universality of socio-cultural change. Change need not be confused with the idea of progress, but neither should it always be labeled "disorganization." Both in this paper and in his major work, Sociologist Lewis Writh has presented us with many provocative ideas. Although one cannot concede that he has given final answers on all points, he has made constructive suggestions which represent important contributions to anthropology and, in at least some degree, to sociology. Lewis suggests that Robert Redfield's earlier study of Tepoztlán was directed primarily toward testing the folk concept rather than at producing a reasonably complete ethnography. This seems a legitimate comment; but Lewis's assertion, at least by implication, that his book is an attempt at a complete ethnography approaches correctness only if his work is read in connection with Redfield's. Even so, a complete study of Tepoztlán material culture has yet to be published.

This article focuses on the Detroit, Michigan, Mexican immigrant and naturalization. Mexicans in Texas and other parts of the South- west have come in varying degrees to be defined by the dominant white caste as an exogamous group, in which the limitation to any individual's status is determined by the fact of birth. A discriminatory tendency, ubiquitous enough to manifest itself in the House of God, could easily promote feelings on the part of Mexicans that they are despised in this country. A Detroit priest commenting on this point stated that Mexicans often do feel this dislike "even to the point of imagining the situation." To counteract this tendency, the present Catholic Archbishop of Detroit, who desires that no discrimination be shown, proposes Mexican participation in American Catholic organizations as a means of overcoming it. But the sense of inferiority and of potential discrimination acts to prevent such participation. Color is perhaps not always basic to prejudice, yet restrictions in rental and social contacts prove the existence of discrimination.

This paper discusses about the problems of differential fertility in Mexico utilizing data that have more recently become available. Large increase in Mexico's urban population has come about in large part from differential internal migration. Indirect evidence of this is shown by an analysis of state-of-birth data from the Mexican Censuses of 1940 and 1950. It was observed that Mexican fertility is subject to the differential effect of urbanization in much the same way as has been fertility in the industrialized countries of the West. The second major observation is that urban dominance significantly reduces the fertility ratio and offers a variable whose importance in fertility studies has hitherto been unexplained. The significance of this factor deserves attention in fertility studies of our own country. It is hoped that the methodological decisions pertaining to the rural-urban designations as well as the technique developed to hold the effects of age constant will be of some use to students of fertility in areas where such methods need to be employed.

Here is increasing awareness among sociologists and anthropologists of the need for comparative studies of urban societies. The connection between urbanization and the development of voluntary associations a special case in point. It has long been accepted as axiomatic that the growth of cities in the United States and the voluntary associations which are such an outstanding feature of American social structure are directly related phenomena. But the development of formally organized voluntary associations another urban cultural areas remains largely inexplored. Within this context, the small pilot study reported in this paper has significance in spite of the limited scope of the research. A major purpose of this project was experimental to test the feasibility of house-to-house interviewing of a Latin American urban population as a step in the planning of further research in the area. Lack of sufficient background data complicates sampling procedure in Mexico and the fieldwork had to be fitted into a nine-weeks schedule. For this reason a proportional sample of the general population was not attempted.

The Spanish-American republics are by and large fairly democratic on paper; for their constitutions call for representative forms of government in which the citizens are supposed to have an effective control of their own destiny. But in fact the countries of Spanish America are governed by techniques which are the very opposite of democratic, and which veil more or less successfully variants of class dictatorship. Evidences showed that in Mexico, elections have little to do with the selection of the chief magistrate, and in Mexico he has much more power than he has in the United States. The reason for this condition of affairs are many and complex, however, the factor that has been selected for discussion in this article is the Spanish character. The truth is that neither letters nor the ways of peace nor the ways of industry ever really competed successfully with the forces of war which determined the national character and molded the values of the Spaniard. Nor has the Spaniard altogether outgrown even yet the heroic values of a feudal society.

Warren C. Robinson and others have presented strong evidence that a substantial portion of the variation in urban-rural fertility differentials is attributable to variations in infant and child mortality when the child-woman ratio is the index of fertility. This paper focuses on the contributions of several additional factors in accounting for variations in urban-rural fertility differentials. 1960 census data for 23 urban and rural areas in Mexico are investigated by means of correlation analysis. City growth and literacy differentials are found to be significantly related to the size of the urban-rural fertility (child-woman ratio) differential, but their effect appears to be indirect, and brought about by their association with urban-rural differentials in the sex ratio at the reproductive ages, age at marriage, and the percentage married. The latter three factors are positively related to the size of the urban-rural fertility differential. City growth is inversely related to the magnitude of the fertility differential. This analysis suggests that changes in (urban) population composition may favor higher as well as lower urban fertility and thus affect the size of the urban-rural fertility differential. If this is true, it would appear that urbanization does not necessarily lead to lower total fertility (at least in its early stages), but may lead to the modification of certain demographic characteristics which formerly favoured lower urban fertility. The long-run effects of urbanization are more difficult to assess, but it is suggested that migrants to urban areas may require several generations to manifest lower fertility. This would constitute an additional factor favouring higher urban fertility. The possible contribution of changing mortality conditions is also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a general description of normative marriage and family roles as found in middle-class Mexico today. An attempt is made to show how culturally defined ideals of male and female roles in courtship influence marriage relationships. It is argued that the discontinuity of role expectations by women is reflected in childrearing practices; in turn these practices lead to a male-female role dichotomy which perpetuates the cycle. The analysis is based on published reports and materials not yet publicity available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper is presented that examines the impact that Mexico's industrial development bank, Nacional Financiera, has had on private business in Mexico. The author notes that the bank's activity in business can be divided into three time periods during the 20th century. The author's findings suggest that the bank has helped some firms receive long-term debt and has positively impacted the leverage position of others.

This article informs that Lincoln Steffens' national influence as a journalistic muckraker was badly eroded, but he retained still useful and potentially important ties to American progressive opinion and politicians when he initially saw revolutionary Mexico in December 1914. Anti-interventionist at least since 1913, he also admired Woodrow Wilson's Mexican policies despite the just-completed occupation of Veracruz. Steffens was typical of American journalists in that country, he knew only crude Spanish and little beyond a few stereotyped ideas about Mexico, its history, culture or politics. Yet his eagerness to understand the meaning and processes of revolution and his readiness to embrace a revolutionary Mexican struggle would distinguish him from most U.S. visitors. To Steffens, de facto recognition might forestall a threat that the U.S. and conservative Latin American governments, presently conferring formally in Washington, might impose elections which would lead to a sinister Mexican regime dominated by anti-revolutionaries returned from exile.

Focuses on the French Legation in Mexico on the eve of intervention. Information on the plan of Judah P. Benjamin, U.S. senator from Louisiana and Alphonse Dubois de Saligny, French minister in Mexico, to form an international company; First official act of Dubois de Saligny as minister to Mexico; Significance of the claims convention which regulates Mexican's indebtedness to French subject, signed by Dubois de Saligny and Francisco Zarco, Mexican foreign minister.

Two of the objectives of the early phase of this work were to demonstrate the important role of personal and social factors, in addition to cultural ones, in nuclear family life, and to show the wide range of individual personality and family types within a single peasant community. In this paper, the author compares the internal structure, psychodynamics, and personality development in two families. The author will also attempt to relate the psychodynamics of these two families to the broader social, economic, and political trends in the village and nation, in order to show the differential effects of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20 upon these families. The Rojas family is one of thirty-seven better-to-do landowning families in the upper economic group of the village. Only 4 per cent of the families in the village are in this category. The Martinez is one of the poorer landless families of the lowest economic group which constitutes about 80 per cent of all families. Although the two families are now at different levels on the economic ladder, it is important to remember that at the time they set up independent households they were both poor.