The state and economic development in Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Abstract

In the search for a “development theory”, during the 1950s and 1960s economists on the whole gave only limited consideration to the behavior of the state. Interest was mainly focused on the role of such factors as capital accumulation, education, transfer of technology, trade strategies etc in the development process. When the state entered the analysis, emphasis was usually put on its positive contribution to development: the state provides infrastructure and overhead capital, it corrects for externalities and designs overall development plans.¹