The unavailability of data to inform policy planning and formulation has been repeatedly cited as the main challenge to economic and social progress in the Caribbean. Furthermore, even in instances when data is produced, broader gaps exist between its production and eventual use for evidence-based policy formulation. Owing to those challenges, this report explores the use of databases of social and gender statistics in the development of policies and programmes in the Caribbean subregion. The report offers a general appraisal of databases against two main considerations: (i) maximizing the use…
This study assesses the potential economic impact of climate change on coastal human settlements in the Caribbean, with specific reference to Barbados, and evaluates the costs and benefits of undertaking various adaptation strategies. The aim is to assist Caribbean territories in developing the strategies and capacity needed to deal with the potential impact of severe weather events that are anticipated to occur with increased frequency and intensity as a result of climate change.
Some of the key anticipated manifestations of climate change for the Caribbean include elevated air and sea-surfac…
Climate change is a continuous process that began centuries ago. Today the pace of change has increased with greater rapidity because of global warming induced by anthropogenically generated greenhouse gases (GHG). Failure to effectively deal with the adverse outcomes can easily disrupt plans for sustainable economic development.
Because of the failure of export agriculture over the last several decades, to provide the economic stimuli needed to promote economic growth and development, Jamaica, like many other island states in the Caribbean subregion, has come to rely on tourism as an instrume…
This report presents the results of a survey of multinational enterprises (MNEs) from Chile, carried out by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (VCC), a joint undertaking of Columbia Law School and The Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York. The survey, conducted in 2011, covers the period 2009-2010 and was undertaken in the framework of the Emerging Markets Global Players (EMGP) project, an initiative of the VCC that brings together researchers from leading instituti…
This paper examines the impact of inflation and its variability for eight Caribbean countries; Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The paper goes beyond the standard approach to examine the variability of relative prices (VRP) within the context of a threshold effects framework, since it was recognized that whether inflation was low or very high was significant in determining its impact on an economy. The paper employed a panel threshold effects model to capture the non-linear nature of the relationship…
Between 2003 and 2008 Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) experienced its most remarkable expansionary period since the 1970s. Yet, LAC countries' productivity gaps widened during this period vis-à-vis industrialized countries (here represented by the United States' manufacturing sector) as revealed in CEPAL (2010). The paper splits up this process and examines the different outcomes observed at the national level for the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico during these boom years. It examines the composition of productivity divergence in terms of sec…
The findings and analysis of this study are based on desk review and secondary data to substantiate this growing phenomenon, especially among the female population. Further the recommendations that will be put forward in this study will be added to the literature and serve as a baseline for further study in the Caribbean region.
The study is sectionalized as follows. Chapter one discusses in brief the demographics, social and economic profiles of Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. This chapter also examines the employment rate, gender and poverty, and the achievements and pro…
This paper addresses the issue of the availability of data on persons with disabilities in the Caribbean subregion. It was prepared as a background paper for the Subregional Meeting and Capacity-Development Training Workshop on Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the Caribbean which was held in Port of Spain from 9 - 10 November 2010. It presents the findings of a survey conducted by ECLAC aimed at gaining insight on current practices of national statistical offices and other data collecting agencies with respect to the collection of natio…
This paper analyzes Raúl Prebisch's less familiar contributions to economic theory, related to the business cycle, and heavily informed by the Argentinean experience. His views of the cycle emphasize the common nature of the cycle in the center and the Latin American periphery as one unified phenomenon. While his rejection of orthodoxy is less than complete, some elements of what would become a more Keynesian position are developed. In particular, a preoccupation with the management of the balance of payments and the need for capital controls as a macroeconomic management tool, considerab…
This report presents the results of a regional study conducted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico, in their respective roles as technical secretariat and coordinator, of the Working Group on Environmental Statistics of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC. The objective was to carry out an in- depth study of the international statistical activities in the area of environmental statistics, with a view to strengthening coordination of those activities and optimizing their contribu…
This paper analyses recent trends and future prospects in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), an incomplete customs union of 15 States in the Caribbean that includes most English speaking countries in the region plus Haiti and Suriname. In these small economies, the promotion of exports is of utmost importance, as in the medium term these are the only means to pay for the import of capital goods, intermediate inputs and technology necessary to build up their economic infrastructure. This study reviews first the progress made with reforms to complete the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) …
The study of CzechInvest, the leading and most prestigious investment and business development agency in the Czech Republic, seeks to describe and analyze the principles underlying the promotion of investment, restructuring and innovation in a country that has undergone a fundamental transformation of its economic, social and political operations in the last 18 years. The country is and interesting example for countries facing the challenges of growing openness to globalized markets and the need to restructure their international exchange patterns and institutional arrangements. The report sh…
The countries of English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean have made significant progress in its economic and human development. Most governments have implemented programs and policies of social protection for vulnerable groups of the population, but its sustainability could be jeopardized because of the global financial crisis. In this cyclical factor is compounded by large external debts of these countries, high exposure to natural disasters, limited natural resources, limited economic diversification and some challenges to their institutional capacities. Although short-term policies are needed …
Financial integration among countries entails a series of well-known benefits. On the one hand, net inflows of external savings can complement national savings within an economy and therefore raise productive investment and income. On the other hand, capital mobility provides opportunities for portfolio diversification and risk sharing between countries and this may enable investors-both firms and households of particular countries- to achieve higher risk-adjusted rates of return. This in turn could encourage increases in savings and investment and therefore deliver faster rates of growth (Eic…
Health care migration is a large and global business. Recruitment is decentralized, involves both public and private sector entrepreneurs, and is difficult to regulate. The countries of the Western Hemisphere are important players in the global health market but, with the partial exception of the Islands of the Caribbean, there is little cooperation among their governments to manage migration patterns or combine forces in order to achieve economies of scale and cost effective training facilities. A related area of concern within the realm of health is care for the elderly. In wealthy countries…
Job creation continues to be a priority in economic policy because the wellbeing of families depends on the quantity and quality of jobs available. In 2004-2008, Latin America recorded its highest economic growth in 40 years, which has had a positive impact on job creation, in contrast to the minimal improvements in both job numbers and quality posted during periods of slow economic growth. Economic growth is not, however, the only factor that shapes these two aspects of employment. The three pillars of the institutional framework for labour, namely, the regulations governing individual and co…
As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the statistical capacities of National Statistical
Offices (NSOs) in the region, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC) convened a two-day Regional Training Workshop on Data Sharing, Data Ownership
and Harmonization of Survey Datasets on 26-27 August 2009 at the Cascadia Hotel, Trinidad
and Tobago. This workshop was one of the concluding activities of the Project on Improving
Household Surveys in the Caribbean which has been implemented by the ECLAC Subregional
office from 2007.…
There is a longstanding tradition of analyzing trade and growth in economics, going back to the discipline's founders. But for Latin America, the debate on the significance of this relationship has had much more than academic relevance. It has been one of the central components of the different approaches to development that have shaped the region's economic history, the other (closely related) component being the roles of the State and of the market in economic development. In Latin America, the dominant understanding of the relationship between trade and growth has evolved radicall…
Over the last 35 years the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has assessed major disasters in the Latin American region. Based on those exercises, which that have been conducted in a systematic manner using an evolving but comparable methodology over the years1, there is now historical evidence of the economic consequences these events have on the region's economies. This evidence-based approach sheds light on the link between economic performance, development dynamics and how disasters, as external shocks, generate lingering…
This study examines the application of the flexicurity labour system in the Caribbean countries of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The flexicurity system has its origins in Denmark and combines elements of labour market flexibility with social security for workers. After outlining the elements of the system, the study provides an overview of the labour market in the Caribbean and compares the performance of Denmark with the three Caribbean countries. The comparison shows that there is a much lower level of flexibility and security in the three Caribbean states than in Denmark. The d…