Herbert S. Klein is Professor of History, Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University. He is also the Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus at Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books and articles and is the co-author most recently of Brazil since 1980.

Noel Maurer is Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School in the Business, Government and the International Economy (BGIE) unit. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty, Maurer was Assistant Professor of Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. The author of several books and numerous articles on Mexican economic history, Maurer's primary interest is in how governments make credible commitments to protect property rights, with a particular focus on Latin America. His current research focuses on the question of whether foreign governments and international institutions can improve property rights systems inside sovereign countries.

Kevin J. Middlebrook is Reader in Latin American Politics at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London. He is author of The Paradox of Revolution: Labor, the State, and Authoritarianism in Mexico (1995) and editor of, among other works, Dilemmas of Political Change in Mexico (2004).