Abstract

This paper shows us that the causes of Latin American indebtedness must to be analyzed from two sides. On one side the transformations that took place in the inter-national financial market and generated an anomalous increase in the supply of credit by the international private banking. On the other side, the economic liberalism that the authoritarian regimes embraced and their social and political necessities to reward the middle-class supporter which led them to increased the debtedness much beyond their capabilities of payment. Considerations are also given to explain why the debtors countries have managed to “reschedule” the existing debt individually and not to bargain collectively. Problems and consequences of a “default” by Latin American countries are also analyzed in this paper.