The central notion of the natural trading partner hypothesis is that a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will be welfare enhancing for members if there is a strong level of bilateral trade complementarity among their trade structures. This paper presents an empirical examination of this issue with...

This paper addresses the issue of threshold effects between public debt and economic growth in the Caribbean. The main finding is that there exists a threshold debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of 55-56 percent. Moreover, the debt dynamics begin changing well before this threshold is...

Bridgetown, Barbados 6th – 10th July, 2009

The rise and fall of preferential trade -- Understanding the EU-ACP economic partnership agreements: the case of the Cariforum -- European policy diffusion and the politics of regional integration in the Pacific -- Developmentalism and the political economy of trade adjustment in Mauritius --...

These musings led me to the topic “Caribbean economic development in the post Washington consensus period”. While much of the presentation will relate to the English-speaking Caribbean, and more particularly the member states of the Caribbean community, we are acutely aware that both Lewis...

Neoclassical economic theory asserts that, when market forces determine the prices of goods and services, resources are allocated most efficiently, economies grow faster and populations enjoy higher standards of living. It also argues that free trade helps to promote an efficient allocation of...