Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves, has chased the oil price surge, at times becoming one of the richest countries in Latin America. During the 1960s, when the economy was booming, it attracted migrants from all over the world; about 15% of the population was foreign born, mostly Europeans. In the 1970s and 1980s, migrants from Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Ecuador arrived in Venezuela, fleeing political and social unrest in their home countries. The collapse in oil prices in the 1980s, along with successive political crises and rising corruption, led to a gradual decline in prosperity, a shrinking economy and inflation.
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