The Caribbean has made substantial progress in recent years in implementing economic reforms, both at the national and regional level. The Caribbean: Enhancing Economic Integration examines the product of the efforts made by Caribbean policymakers to strengthen regional cooperation and integration, which has yielded economic transformation and tighter integration with the global economy. This volume discusses regional financial integration as a means of deepening financial systems and raising regional growth; the relationship between tax incentives and investment, where harmonized regional action is important in seeking to overcome collective actions problems; and the consequences for the Caribbean of the erosion of trade preferences in key export markets. The book is based on empirical research carried out as part of the IMF's regional surveillance work in the Caribbean.

The experiences of Caribbean Economic Community countries show that exchange rate depreciation in these countries is inflationary, and that, while changes in the relative prices of tradables may affect exports, tourism, and imports, nominal exchange rate changes have no predictable effect on those relative prices. Under these circumstances, economic literature indicates that a fixed exchange rate regime is optimal, and Caribbean countries with (quasi-) currency boards have been successful in maintaining durable exchange rate pegs. Commitment to a currency board is a potentially vital step in achieving a currency union for the Caribbean.

This book represents the product of a two-year research project and a four-year personal journey to explore the relationship between migration and economic development in the Caribbean area. Does Caribbean immigration to the United States assist or impede the economic development of the Caribbean? Would the curtailment of immigration affect the stability of the Caribbean? Can a certain mix of development strategies significantly reduce the pressures for migration? What can the United States and the Caribbean countries do separately and together to improve the prospects for economic development while permitting migration at manageable levels? This book begins with these questions and ends with some answers.

A comprehensive, timely and entertaining account of the political, cultural and economic dynamics of more than 30 discrete countries of the Western Hemisphere, this book is updated each year, providing students with the most recent information possible.

This book compares and contrasts the contemporary development experience of neighbouring, geographically similar countries with an analogous history of exploitation but by three different European colonisers. Studying the so-called ‘Three Guianas’ (Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana) offers a unique opportunity to look for similarities and differences in their contemporary patterns of development, particularly as they grapple with new and complex shifts in the regional, hemispheric and global context. Shaped decisively by their respective historical experiences, Guyana, in tandem with the laissez-faire approach of Britain toward its Caribbean colonies, was decolonised relatively early, in 1966, and has maintained a significant degree of distance from London. The hold of The Hague over Suriname, however, endured well after independence in 1975. French Guiana, by contrast, was decolonised much sooner than both of its neighbours, in 1946, but this was through full integration, thus cementing its place within the political economy and administrative structures of France itself. Traditionally isolated from the Caribbean, the wider Latin American continent and from each other, today, a range of similar issues – such as migration, resource extraction, infrastructure development and energy security – are coming to bear on their societies and provoking deep and complex changes.