Sometimes, Mexicans have been portrait as a nation of lazy people. This is a deeply rooted perception that some Mexicans have of themselves. They make jokes about it and there is no one lazier than a Mexican, just another Mexican. There even exists a stereotype, which has circled around the world of a Mexican, taking a nap in a hammock between two cacti.
However, figures don’t lie. Contrary to some stereotypes, Mexicans are far away from being lazy according to world standards. Studies by the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development …

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) has been issued by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) since 2006. The GHI evaluates hunger for 122 non-industrialized countries from a multidimensional perspective, considering three basic indicators: 1) the proportion of undernourished people, 2) the proportion of underweight children under five and 3) the infant mortality rate.
According to GHI, eradicating malnutrition is one of the main challenges in the world if we consider that child malnutrition can cause serious damage to health in the adult life, besides affecting the productivity and earning potential …

Today Mexico is Latin America’s largest exporter with exports accounting for 30% of the region, and well above the joint level of exports of Brazil and Argentina.
This has been the result of trade liberalization process and the signing of free trade agreements that have led Mexico to be one of the countries with more trade agreements in the world. In particular, the signing of NAFTA was essential to promote and boost the exports to the U.S. and Canada, and has positioned Mexico as a major cluster for the international manufacturing …

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index created by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and is the first ever index to combine environmental impact with well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which country by country, people live long and happy lives.
Regardless of the superficiality that its name could evoke, the HPI does not measure how “happy” people are in each country, but it shows the relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens, not only accounting for economic …

Culture is valued differently according to each country, and its people’s beliefs, although it is not always clear how one could measure this. According to Ernesto Piedras, in his book “¿What is the value of Culture? Economic Contribution of Copyright Protected Industries” the value of culture considers activities which are developed upon artistic and literary original creations, which are subject to copyright. Ernesto Piedras implies that cultural industries are by themselves, a sector of economic activity that shares similar characteristics to other economic activity sectors.
Although Mexico is known for its …

Mexico has made strides in the last 10 years on diminishing teenage pregnancies. A study by the Swedish doctor and researcher Hans Rosling, with data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators Online, shows how in Mexico teenage pregnancies rate per thousand women aged 15 to 19, has significantly lowered.
Today, there are 65.84 pregnancies per thousand teen women, while in 1996, 77.8 were observed; twelve teen pregnancies less per every thousand women each year.
Overall, Latin America has still high rates of teenage pregnancy. Moreover, according to Rosling, the Americas has …

The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 has had a significant impact in all countries and, in particular, most levels of economic growth and employment have been significantly affected.
In the case of Mexico, given the close commercial link with the U.S. due to NAFTA, the effects of the mortgage crisis resulted in a lower level of exports and employment. The commercial link between the two countries is so great that the contraction of the U.S. economy impacted an economic decrease for Mexico by 6.5 per cent. This contraction rate has not …