The research expands the scope of the World System and Dependency theories that
emphasize the deleterious effects of the extent of external debt held by multilateral
institutions (Chase-Dunn, 1975; Sell and Kunitz, 1986-87; Meldrum, 1987; Harsch,
1989; Bradshaw and Huang, 1991; Bradshaw et al., 1993) and the structure of capital
formation (Chase-Dunn 1975;Bornschier, Chase-Dunn, and Rubinson 1978; Bornschier
and Chase-Dunn,1985; Timberlake and Kentor, 1983; Bradshaw, 1987; Walton and
Ragin, 1990; Dixon and Boswell, 1996; Firebaugh, 1996) on the growth and
development of Third World Countries. This research primarily examines the
relationship between external debt held by multilateral development institutions and
central government debt. A major barrier to social and economic development in
developing countries is malnutrition and the inability of individuals to maintain a healthy
standard of living and be economically and socially productive. The major findings on
the direct and indirect effect of external debt and the solvency of a domestic economy on
the health and nutritional status of women and children were: External debt as measured
as a percent of GDP did produce slight but statistically significant direct effects on
under-five infant mortality. Central government debt as measured as a percent of GDP
demonstrated a direct effect only with under-five mortality and it was modest at best.
Gross domestic investment measured as a percent of GDP also exhibited a weak direct
effect on under-five infant mortality and percent total immunized. As expected, external
debt did demonstrate a substantial and statistically significant direct effect on central
government debt. The results of the path analysis reveal that external debt consistently
produced an indirect effect, operating through central government debt, on measures of
under-five mortality, percent children immunized, and children wasting and stunting.
However, the magnitude fluctuates considerably and their statistical significance drops
to below acceptable levels on childhood immunizations and the nutritional measures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/1563 |
| Date | 17 February 2005 |
| Creators | Burns, Jackie Rene |
| Contributors | McIntosh, William Alex |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 337508 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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