A New Perspective on Poverty in the Caribbean reflects on the current approaches to the challenge of poverty reduction in the context of the findings of the qualitative and quantitative analyses and identifies some critical ingredients for successful poverty-reduction interventions around which a regional consensus could be built. The role and nature of participation, the policy environment for social services delivery are considered along with specific poverty reduction interventions and the general approach to poverty reduction in the Caribbean.

Examines the problem of inedequate access to information and communication technology (ICT) and the need to develop appropriate pro-poor ICT policies. Shows how market reforms have failed to ensure that the benefits of the Information Society have spread across the region.

Caribbean economies have been faced with mounting challenges arising from the increasing pace of economic globalization. The financial crisis of 2007 further exacerbated economic instability due to high foreign debt, lack of competitiveness, declining productivity, and high unemployment and underemployment. This in turn has precipitated increasing social and environmental problems, including poverty, inequality, crime and violence, and environmental degradation, all of which require new perspectives and policy approaches for transformative change and sustainable development. In this two volume multidisciplinary edited book The Modern Caribbean Economy, Volume I provides scholars and practitioners with alternative theoretical perspectives and concrete policy recommendations, while Volume II discusses economic, industrial, and social problems facing the Caribbean along with pragmatic proposals to successfully deal with these, while building local resilience and enhancing institutional strength in the region.

This volume explores tourism in the Caribbean - one of the most tourism dependent regions of the world - within the context of key currents of Caribbean thought and critique in relation to issues of dependency, postcolonial interactions, race and class as well as identity and culture.

One out of every five Latin Americans or around 130 million people have never known anything but poverty, subsisting on less than US$4-a-day throughout their lives. These are the region ́s chronically poor, who have remained so despite unprecedented inroads against poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean since the turn of the century. Left Behind: Chronic Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean takes a closer look at the region’s entrenched poor, who and where they are, and how existing policies need to change in order to effectively assist them. The book shows significant variations of rates of chronic poverty both across and within countries. Within a single country, some regions show incidence rates up to eight times higher than the lowest. Despite the higher rates of chronic poverty in rural areas, chronic poverty is as much an urban as a rural issue. In fact, considering absolute numbers, urban areas in many countries, including Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, have more chronic poor than rural areas. Undoubtedly the region has come a long way during the decade in terms of poverty reduction, guided by a mix of sustained growth and increased levels in amounts and quality of public spending and programs targeted directly or indirectly to the chronic poor. While improving endowments and the context where the chronic poor live is a necessary condition going forward, the decade’s experience suggests that it may not be enough to reach the chronic poor. The book posits that refinements to the existing policy toolkit †“ as opposed to more programs †“ may come a long way in helping the remaining poor. These refinements include intensifying efforts to improve coordination between different social and economic programs, which can boost the income generation process and deal with the intergenerational transmission of chronic poverty by investing in early childhood development. Equally important though, there is an urgent need to adapt programs to directly address the psychological toll of chronic poverty on people’s mindset and aspirations, which currently undermines the effectiveness of the existing policy efforts.

There is long-standing debate on how population growth affects national economies. A new report from Population Matters examines the history of this debate and synthesizes current research on the topic. The authors, led by Harvard economist David Bloom, conclude that population age structure, more than size or growth per se, affects economic development, and that reducing high fertility can create opportunities for economic growth if the right kinds of educational, health, and labor-market policies are in place. The report also examines specific regions of the world and how their differing policy environments have affected the relationship between population change and economic development.