ABSTRACT
Term popularly given to the economic crisis afflicting many developing countries in the 1980s. It came to urgent public notice in August 1982, when Mexico, with an external debt in excess of US $90,000m., announced that it would be unable to meet its scheduled debt-service repayments. The incoming administration of President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado was forced to make sharp cuts in government expenditure to secure the agreement of international lending agencies to reschedule the debt, a pattern which was to be repeated throughout Latin America, with the sole exception of Colombia.
