Although the main, most influential reason for Haiti's collapse and The Dominican Republic's success was the geographical features, another contributor was the economic instability.Since the start, the Republic had a bit of an advantage. The rest of the world had very different perspectives on the two countries. Haiti was viewed as a Creole speaking, African society full of ex-slaves that was hostile towards foreigners. The Dominican Republic was viewed as a spanish speaking country that was open to immigrants and trade. This led to Europe and the United States helping the Republic to develop its own market export economy. Haiti's overall economy is doing much worse than the Dominican Republic's. The fact that Haiti has more environmental issues than the Dominican Republic directly relates to its economic status. Haiti has experienced exploiting by foreign powers, the Dominican Republic, and its own rulers. Back when Haiti was owned by France, it became one of the wealthiest countries in the Caribbean. This was due to the heavy importation of slaves and the environmental degrading. As France milked Haiti of its coffee and sugar the amount of resources began to decrease. This became a big issue because of Haiti's high population. Haiti, as it does now, had a much larger population than The Dominican Republic which made the economic situation in Haiti even worse. Currently, statistics show that Haiti has much less economic freedom than the Dominican Republic. For example, Haiti has less freedom in business, government, investment, property, and freedom from corruption. In all these categories the Dominican Republic is doing much better than its neighboring country. Haiti is known to be the World's poorest country aside from some in Africa who are even poorer than Haiti. 77% of Haiti's population is suffering from poverty. This probably has to do with the fact that more than two-thirds of the labor force are employed with non-formal jobs. On the contrary, the Dominican Republic is doing a bit better than Haiti. Although the whole Hispaniola island is pretty poor, the D.R. has some advantages. To begin with, the Dominican Republic is the world's third largest importer of avocados. This is a great source of income for the country. In addition to that, the D.R. has much more land and much less people than Haiti. Although both countries have their own share of beautiful beaches, due to the chaos in Haiti, the Dominican Republic gets most of the tourism. One might ask, where did all this economic instability come from? Well this defective economic system started back when the Island was first founded.