Although the Dominican Republic had one of the highest economic growth rates in the world between 1969 and 1973, its growth performance and external position deteriorated sharply in the 1970s. By 1985 it had an external debt/GDP ratio of 76.6%, well above the average of 62.3% for the Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole.1 The Dominican debt crisis that emerged in the 1980s, like the crisis in many other debtridden Less Developed Countries (LDCs), was in part caused by adverse external conditions; in part, however, it was the result of domestic policy choices. Among the latter, large fiscal imbalances are arguably the most important.2
Wionczek, Miguel S. avec la collaboration de L. Tomassini, Politics and Economics of External Debt Crisis: The Latin American Experience, Boulder, Westview Press, coll. « Westview Special Studies on Latin America and the Caribbean », 1985, 496 p.