Current Activities

At present, the CIESR is in the process of undertaking a survey of microenterprises in northern and central Mexico. A principal goal of this survey is an examination of the role remittances may play in microenterprise creation and operations. This survey will be unique in that it will gather data from microenterprises that operate largely beyond the reach Mexican government's statistical nets - that is, it will specifically target the so-called informal sector. In Phase I of this project a pilot survey was administered in order to test survey methodology and instruments . Using $18,400 in grants from UNT's Charn Uswachoke and UNT's Hispanic and Global Studies Initiative Funds, this pilot was carried out in May 2007, and involved interviews with 125 microenterprise proprietors. After the completion of the survey, three nationally known microenterprise survey experts were asked to evaluate the overall importance of the work, as well as the survey methodology and instruments. The report from the Phase I pilot can be found here.

Phase II of this project, funded by a $22,628 grant from UNT's Hispanic and Global Studies Initiative Fund, was a second pilot survey, carried out in May of 2008 in and around the area of the city of Toluca in central Mexico. This second pilot incorporated the lessons learned in Phase I and the suggestions of the external reviewers, and allowed us to fine-tune our instruments and methodology. The report from the Phase II pilot can be found here.

Phase III will involve a survey of approximately 8,000 microenterprises in the states of Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Guanajuato,  Hidalgo,  Jalisco, Mexico, Michoacan,  Morelos, Nayarit , Nuevo Leon,  Puebla, Queretaro, Tlaxcala, and Zacatecas. It is anticipated that the fieldwork for Phase II will occur during the summer of 2009.