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This edition of the Caribbean Economics Quarterly focuses on the issue of long-term economic growth. As economies have recovered from the pandemic, the main question is: Will the region return to the slow long-run growth of the pre-pandemic period? The key lies in innovation and productivity. To understand the challenges facing businesses to innovate and increase productivity, the authors draw on recent firm-level data from the Compete Caribbean Partnership Facilitys Innovation, Firm Performance and Gender (IFPG) survey. This edition starts with an overview of past performance of Caribbean countries in terms of economic growth and productivity. It then describes the IFPG data and summarizes recent research papers analyzing those data and the conclusions emerging from that research. Finally, the country chapters draw on the Compete Caribbean database to describe the challenges facing firms at the country level.

Last year ended with incipient but fragile economic recoveries in most Caribbean economies. Relatively low vaccination rates remain a concern in the six countries covered by the Caribbean Country Department of the IDB. The sharp rise in commodity prices bolster prospects for commodity exporters in the region, but they also dampen prospects for tourism dependent economies. This edition of the Caribbean Quarterly Bulletin provides a “Year in Review in Graphs” for the overall region and each of the six countries. The graphs cover the evolution of key macroeconomic variable during the course of 2021.

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