SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Prior to the Asian financial crisis, it was accepted wisdom to compare the growth of Latin America unfavourably to that of a selection of East and Southeast Asian countries (the so‐called high performing Asian economies). This paper presents statistics that indicate that the differences in performance may have been less than as commonly presented. A modified Harrod–Domar model is applied to the Latin American countries, and the results suggest that a major determinant of slower growth in Latin America was the debt service burden.