Introduction

• Author: Courtney Blackman
• Pages: 13-20

INTRODUCTION

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The purpose of this Introduction is to provide the reader with a

roadmap for navigating the 22 papers of this book, written on

numerous topics over three decades, and in response to various

institutional problems and client requests. They were all heterodox

at the time of writing. The economic fortunes and challenges of

the former British West Indies, spanning three decades or so,

have provided the background against which the essays assembled

in this volume were written. They are Antigua and Barbuda, The

Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts

and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad

and Tobago, and Montserrat (still a UK colony), with a total

population of less than six million. Since 1978 they have

constituted a Caribbean Community and Common Market

(CARICOM). Haiti and Suriname, recently admitted into

CARICOM, have not been specifically covered in these essays.

Former colonies of France and Holland, respectively, these two

countries are culturally and politically quite different from the

Anglophone Caribbean, and are still only loosely integrated into

CARICOM. Nevertheless, lessons from the Anglophone Caribbean

experience should not be lost on Haitians and Surinamese.

Compared with the rest of the developing world, the

independent Anglophone Caribbean states are quite well off. Of

214 countries surveyed in the 2005 World Bank Report, the per

capita gross national income (GNI) statistics, calculated on a

purchasing power parity basis (PPP), were given as follows for these

countries: Antigua and Barbuda at US$9,590.00, The Bahamas at

INTRODUCTION