Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Dedication
- Preface
- List of acronyms
- Table of official exchange rate parities to US dollar
- Map: Central America
- 1 A century of independence: foundations of export-led growth
- 2 Central America in the 1920s: reform and consolidation
- 3 The 1929 depression
- 4 Economic recovery and political reaction in the 1930s
- 5 Central America and the Second World War
- 6 Post-war economic recovery
- 7 The struggle for democracy, the Cold War and the Labour movement in the first post-war decade
- 8 The foundations of modern export-led growth, 1954–60
- 9 The illusion of a golden age, 1960–70
- 10 External shocks and the challenge to the social order, 1970–9
- 11 The descent into regional crisis
- 12 Conclusions
- Methodological Appendix
- Statistical Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
6 - Post-war economic recovery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Dedication
- Preface
- List of acronyms
- Table of official exchange rate parities to US dollar
- Map: Central America
- 1 A century of independence: foundations of export-led growth
- 2 Central America in the 1920s: reform and consolidation
- 3 The 1929 depression
- 4 Economic recovery and political reaction in the 1930s
- 5 Central America and the Second World War
- 6 Post-war economic recovery
- 7 The struggle for democracy, the Cold War and the Labour movement in the first post-war decade
- 8 The foundations of modern export-led growth, 1954–60
- 9 The illusion of a golden age, 1960–70
- 10 External shocks and the challenge to the social order, 1970–9
- 11 The descent into regional crisis
- 12 Conclusions
- Methodological Appendix
- Statistical Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
Summary
The first decade after the Second World War was a period of economic, social and political upheaval for Central America. Some of the political events, particularly the Guatemalan revolutionary experience and the Costa Rican civil war of 1948, are well known; yet the economic background against which these developments unfolded has not been so well explored. This chapter will therefore concentrate on the economic changes in the decade up to 1954, the year in which the Guatemalan revolution ended, while the following chapter will be concerned with social and political developments in the same period.
Central America came out of the Second World War with an economy which exhibited many of the classic signs of under-development. Exports continued to be dominated by earnings from coffee and bananas, both of which were non-essential as far as the Allied war effort was concerned, and output had suffered accordingly. Although foreign exchange reserves had expanded during the war, there had been no possibility of translating this into imports of machinery to start new industrial activities because of wartime shortages of such goods. Production of goods for the home market, whether agricultural or industrial, was held back by inadequate infrastructure, a weak financial system and low effective demand, and the state's ability to correct these deficiencies was retarded by a regressive fiscal system, which remained over-dependent on import duties, and a political system which was in some cases overtly hostile to capitalist modernisation.
The first decade after the war provided an unprecedented opportunity for Central America to correct some of these deficiencies in the economic system.
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- Information
- The Political Economy of Central America since 1920 , pp. 105 - 129Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987