f 27%. More indicative yet, the 1980 stock of international bank lending--defined as cross border lending plus domestic lending made in foreign currency--was $324 billion. By 1991, despite the previous year's efforts of lending institutions to meet new capital requirements, international bank lending had risen to $7.5 trillion. To put this in better perspective, the aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) of the 24 OECD industrial nations was $7.6 trillion in 1980, and $17.1 trillion in 1991. That means that during the 1980s the stock of international bank lending has risen from 4% of the OECD's GDP to roughly 44%.
This dramatic increase in international financial activity in the 1970s and 1980s has resulting in heavily indebting many Latin American and Third World countries in the 1990s. Less-developed countries bore the brunt of the debt crisis. The trade deficit for less-developed countries, for example, rose from $22.2 billion in 1979 to $91.6 billion just two years later. Increases in interest payments rose from $24.3 billion to $41.8 billion over the
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