External events, domestic policies and structural adjustment

This article examines the drop in the per capita product of the region from 1981 onwards due hotli to the stagnation of per capita production capacity and the fact that the effective product was less than the potential product. Production capacity stagnated because investment fell to levels which were not high enough to ensure growth in the potential per capita product. This decline in investment, in turn, was due basically to the net transfers of resources abroad caused by the debt crisis and the severe deterioration in the terms of trade as from 1982.