This volume focuses on the issues and debates surrounding the agricultural export economy of Central America. Perspectives on traditional exports and the international markets, and labour problems are provided as well as a comparative study of the Salvadorean and Nicaraguan cotton sectors.

El Salvador is a small developing country that has undergone important processes of agrarian change and suffered the consequences of a 12-year civil war which ended with a peace agreement in the 1990s. Economic reforms have given insufficient weight to history, institutions and politics. This book will show that to improve their efficiency, there is a need to consider how both economic and political variables have affected social structures and institutions. To be sustainable reforms should aim at an appropriate balance between growth and distribution. The outcomes of this research question some commonly accepted theses on agrarian transformation, state autonomy and the role of economic policy and foreign intervention in El Salvador and Central America in general.

A study of economic development in the Dominican Republic, this book argues that rigid economic structures and poor use of labour resources have created conditions that undermine the demand for labour, and maintain perpetual poverty and unemployment. Viewing the problem from a broad perspective, the author analyzes labour and credit markets, offers empirical data on agricultural yields, and examines such socioeconomic issues as the living conditions among the peasantry, the demand for immigrant Haitian labour, and migration from rural to urban areas.