The economic integration in Central America : doomed to fail?

Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua created the Central American Common Market in 1960. For about two decades the participants performed successfully in terms of standard macroeconomic indicators. Starting in the late sixties, however, the common market gradually began to disintegrate when Honduras withdrew from the organization. Today, little of the institutional framework remains. The purpose of this paper is to give an interpretation of the macroeconomic developments since 1960