ABSTRACT
As we saw in the previous chapters, most of the agricultural land in the Dominican Republic is concentrated in the hands of a minority. A few large landowners, including the state, control the supply of land and thereby exercise monopoly power in the land market. This land tenure system also influences the performance of the credit market. Credit tends to be concentrated in the hands of the latifundistas since these can use the land as collateral while small peasants cannot. This market structure affects the allocation of resources and the methods of production. The utilization of resources in agriculture is thus intimately related to the latifundio-minifundio system.
