The State and transnational banks: Lessons from the Bolivian crisis of external public indebtedness

In order to examine the decisive role played by transnational private banks in the Bolivian economy in recent years, the author considers the concept of external dependence. After analysing in his introduction the usual meanings of this concept as referred to external vulnerability and foreign participation in the economy, he concentrates on what he calls Voluntary dependence’, where such dependence is generated or increased due to the actual economic policy adopted by the State.