Engine of Growth?: The Caribbean Private Sector Needs More Than an Oil Change

Ruprah, Inder J.; Sierra, Ricardo

doi:10.18235/0000545

Cited by 17 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Ruprah and Sierra (2016) found that these complaints are generally correlated with objective indicators and reflect a reality faced by private firms in the Caribbean.…”

Section: Microeconomic Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 83%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Are Oil and Gas Smothering the Private Sector in Trinidad and Tobago?

Khadan¹

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose.No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license. A recent example of this is echoed in the national budget statement for 2017: Diversification… requires that the private sector changes its mindset, from commerce to industry, from focus on the domestic market to seeking to explore global markets, from consuming foreign exchange to earning foreign exchange, from avoiding risks in new ventures and technologies to taking on new risks and facing new competitive pressures to conquer new fields.Such expectations should be grounded in reality and context. Unfortunately, there are no empirical studies on the country's private sector that can provide relevant guidance. Therefore, this report is the first contribution to empirically answering questions related to the performance and challenges facing the private sector in Trinidad and Tobago.Given the sense of urgency expounded for the private sector's enhanced role in supporting economic growth, creating employment, and improving the economic welfare of the nation's citizenry, we find that there is much work to be done. Firm-level performance indicators suggest that the majority of firms are either stagnant or declining. In addition, total factor productivity measured at the firm level is relatively lower in Trinidad and Tobago when compared with other countries in the Caribbean, labour productivity has been declining since the great recession, and private investment is significantly lower than the average for other small commodity-exporting countries. vi ARE OIL AND GAS SMOTHERING THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO?Hence, a concerted policy effort is required to transform Trinidad and Tobago's private sector into an engine of sustainable growth.This study examines factors relating to the profile of firms, macroeconomic conditions, the business climate, and laments of businesspersons as possible constraints to performance. The findings reveal that an unfavorable macroeconomic environment and business climate affects all firms in the private sector. With respect to the former, the main issue relates to an overvalued exchange rate-a negative externality of being hydrocarbon-dependent. An unfavorable business climate reflects government policies, regulations, and public services that hinder rather than promote a dynamic, export-oriented and innovative private sector. Moreover, th...

show abstract

“…Ruprah and Sierra (2016) found that these complaints are generally correlated with objective indicators and reflect a reality faced by private firms in the Caribbean.…”

Section: Microeconomic Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…In order to assess performance at the firm level, two indicators are used: sales growth and TFP. Both measures are calculated for the 12 Caribbean countries that were covered in the Productivity, Technology and Innovation (PROTEqIN) Survey (Ruprah and Sierra 2016).…”

Section: Performance Of Firmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Oil and Gas Smothering the Private Sector in Trinidad and Tobago?

Khadan¹

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A 10 percent reduction in crime is associated with an 8 percent increase in sales growth for firms that are tourism dependent and a 4 percent increase in sales growth in commodity-dependent countries. Thus, the tourism-dependent economies 9 See Ruprah and Sierra (2016) for further details. Group,195,197,222 airlift from, 50, 51f, 52n10 CBRs and,274,282,285 Cuba and,3,5,46,59,[63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75]68f,69n5 …”

Section: The Economic Impact Of a Reduction In Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The findings of these initiatives are detailed in three recent IDB publications (Ruprah and Sierra 2016;Sutton and Ruprah 2017;Jaitman 2017). This chapter summarizes some of the main findings of these publications, with a preliminary assessment of their possible implications.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Unleashing Growth and Strengthening Resilience in the Caribbean

Srinivasan¹,

Ötker²,

Ramakrishnan³

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In its aim to stimulate policy dialogue and help policymakers overcome the challenges that hinder Caribbean economies from fulfilling their potential for growth and development, this book is a timely success. By bringing together up-to-date research on the challenges of weak macroeconomic fundamentals and long-standing structural impediments, it provides insights and policy perspectives that can shape coherent answers to these pressing policy concerns. The book's careful analyses point the way toward opportunities for welfare gains from determined but balanced policy actions targeted at the region's high energy costs, financial exclusion, high crime rates, and the persistent loss of skilled workers to richer countries. Consideration of the vulnerabilities and opportunities that arise from financial interconnectedness across the Caribbean also informs the book's reminder to policymakers of the benefits that remain to be exploited by greater regional cooperation in a number of areas. With its relevance and range of evidence-based policy recommendations, this volume earns its place on the bookshelves of practitioners and other students of Caribbean economic development. -Brian Wynter Governor, Bank of JamaicaThis book provides a comprehensive assessment of three major Caribbean contemporary economic challenges-slow growth, macroeconomic imbalances, and structural impediments. The chapters are skillfully written by Fund economists, who are versed in the various aspects of Caribbean economic issues, to relate the challenges to the vicious cycle. Policy recommendation is an important aspect of the book and addressed at both the individual country and regional levels. This book is a mustread for public policymakers and anyone interested in contemporary Caribbean and small states economic and financial issues.-Dr. Gobind Ganga Governor, Bank of Guyana Economic growth in the Caribbean over the last two decades has been slow, both relative to growth in the region over the previous 20 years and in comparison to other small, non-Caribbean countries. Unleashing Growth and Strengthening Resilience in the Caribbean provides a thorough analysis of the region's subpar economic performance and lays out a practical approach for improvement. The authors highlight key policy changes that merit serious consideration: building greater resilience to increasingly frequent hurricanes; reducing the cost of energy; greater investment in infrastructure; more regional cooperation and integration; microeconomic reforms to reduce the cost of doing business; and countercyclical fiscal policy. But the path to faster sustainable and inclusive growth is different for each of the 13 countries examined in this book, and it's refreshing to see the IMF embark upon a more collaborative, tailored approach to its recommendations for developing countries. This country-specific approach is part of a broader-and greatly welcomed-philosophical change at the Fund, which recognizes that the best kind of economic discipline does not push extreme measures such a...

show abstract

“…Some researchers and policymakers have argued that the Caribbean's private sector should play a key role in promoting higher and more sustainable growth. However, the private sector in the Caribbean is currently characterised as being largely static and underperforming based on estimates of sales growth and total factor productivity (Ruprah and Sierra 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the Effects of Human Capital Constraints on Innovation in the Caribbean

Khadan

2018

Economies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Human capital, as reflected in education levels and skills, and innovation is an important engine of economic growth. The Caribbean is deficient in both: lower than expected GDP growth rates are accompanied by relatively low innovation at the firm level, and the workforce is characterised by skills deficiencies and educational mismatches. In that regard, this paper exploits firm-level data covering 13 Caribbean countries to examine the extent to which innovation, a key driver of productivity growth, is affected by firms' inability to find appropriately educated and skilled workers to fill key positions in its organizational structure, which is estimated using Probit models distinguishing between past and future innovation decisions. The econometric analysis finds that firms that have difficulty finding new skilled employees are less likely to engage in any type of innovation compared to those that can, and this is also true for decisions about future technological and non-technological innovations. Moreover, firms that face challenges finding employees with the required core and job-related skills at the managerial and professional levels are also less likely to innovate. Finally, while in-firm training is found to increase the probability of innovation, its magnitude is low.

show abstract

Engine of Growth?: The Caribbean Private Sector Needs More Than an Oil Change

Cited by 17 publications

References 50 publications

Are Oil and Gas Smothering the Private Sector in Trinidad and Tobago?

Are Oil and Gas Smothering the Private Sector in Trinidad and Tobago?

Unleashing Growth and Strengthening Resilience in the Caribbean

Estimating the Effects of Human Capital Constraints on Innovation in the Caribbean

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About