Growth in the Dominican Republic and Haiti

In: IMF Working Papers

Abstract

The Dominican Republic and Haiti share the island of Hispaniola and are broadly similar in terms of geography and historical institutions, yet their growth performance has diverged remarkably. The countries had the same per capita real GDP in 1960 but, by 2005, the Dominican Republic's per capita real GDP had tripled whereas that of Haiti had halved. Drawing on the growth literature, the paper explains this divergence through a combined approach that includes a panel regression to study growth determinants across a broad group of countries, and a case study framework to better understand the s