ABSTRACT
The Peruvian nation-state emerged during the war of independence against the Spanish colonial rule in South America. Compared to the rest of Latin America, the movement of independence in Peru was successful only at a late stage. Peru's economic situation improved only with the discovery of large deposits of guano in the 1830s and 1840s and the subsequent demand for this fertilizer from European core countries. The debt history of Peru can be divided into several cycles all passing through the same sequences of debt expansion, outbreak of financial crisis and debt settlement. The distributive policies in favor of the groups included land reform for peasants and urban development and distribution of land property titles for squatters. The chronic nature of Peru's debt crisis becomes apparent by the fact that after 1978 debt-service payments could only be maintained thanks to extensive multilateral debt reschedulings granted by official and private creditors.
