ABSTRACT
Panama is one of the smallest countries in Latin America with a population of near two million people, and an annual percapita GNP of only US$660. Average per capital GNP has not increased during the past decade, yet the distribution of income has improved. This has been largely due to a significant amount of public investment in social programs. The latter has put the country in serious indebtness, as the public debt rose from US$237.75 million in 1969 to US$1645.26 million in 1979. Furthermore, the public debt in 1979 represented 85.5 percent of GNP, while in 1970 it accounted for only 24.7 percent of GNP (IDB, 1981; p. 107) as shown in Table 4.1.
