The Monetary Commission: Its Functions, Its Transformation into a Central Bank, and Other Notes on Its Activities During the Mexican Revolution

Abstract

This article outlines the foundation and institutional transformations of the Monetary Commission, an agency that played a significant role in the establishment of Mexico’s earliest monetary regulatory authorities. During the Mexican Revolution, the Commission also assumed responsibilities in banking supervision, enabling it to develop technical and administrative expertise that subsequent governments adapted through both formal legal reforms and informal institutional practices. Building on this experience, and in response to the shortage of sufficiently professionalized personnel, policymakers chose to use the Commission as the organizational foundation for the new Central Bank of the Mexican State. This essay also examines some of the challenges arising from monetary disorder, a phenomenon that contributed to the near-total collapse of the banking system inherited from the Porfirian regime.