La economía de Venezuela, 1975-2005un fracaso difícil de entender

Abstract

This study presents a long-term view of the Venezuelan economy over the last thirty years, a period that constitutes a clear example of the failure of a country to overcome a situation of underdevelopment, in spite of having benefited from a rise in oil prices following the 1973 crisis. For reasons of space every detail cannot be included, but the objective is to offer a thorough approximation of what happened. In the first section, figures are presented that allow us to speak of failure. In the second section we attempt to set out the main explanations for these very limited results with the help of the “resource curse” theory. Indeed, in the Venezuelan economy oil is a curse, a “poisoned” gift that has permitted large public investments and is in turn the key to understanding its process of indebtedness and its crisis. In the third section an analysis is made of the poverty and inequality in the country during this period, whereas in the fourth and last section we make an overall, although preliminary, assessment of the evolution of the economy in recent years.