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CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR EMPLOYMENT AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE CARIBBEAN REGION Strengthening Caribbean Economic Growth (SCEG) August 2025 Authored by Sasha Muench and Deborah Gordon ## Contents 1. Introduction ... 3 2. Methodology and Limitations of Findings ... 4 2.1 Market Constraints Research ... 4 2.2 Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) Survey ... 4 3. Key Findings ... 6 3.1 Small Island Economies ... 6 3.2 Tourism ... 8 3.3 Labor Force Participation ... 10 3.4 Education and Workforce Skills Gap ... 11 3.5 Enterprise Challenges ... 14 3.6 Limited Access to Finance ... 16 3.7 Lack of Mobile Internet Utilization ... 19 3.8 Weak Business Resilience Capacities ... 21 3.9 Limited Business Development Services (BDS) ... 22 4. Potential for Change ... 24 5. Conclusion ... 25 Annexes ... 27 Annex A: Emigration Data for 11 of the 12 Jurisdictions ... 27 Annex B: Obstacles to Business Innovation – Perception of Enterprises in the Caribbean ... 28 Annex C: Detailed Information on Caribbean Credit Unions ... 29 Annex D: Other Relevant Programs ... 30 Annex E: KAP Survey Participant Demographics ... 33 Annex F: KAP Correlation Analysis ... 35 Annex G: KAP Survey Questions ... 36 References ... 38 ## 1. Introduction Figure 1: Map of the Caribbean The U.S. Department of State-funded program, Strengthening Caribbean Economic Growth (SCEG), aims to build the economic strength and job skill sets of individuals aged 16 and older so they may better pursue employment, entrepreneurship, and economic well-being. To achieve this goal, the SCEG program will launch a small grant challenge to identify and implement solutions that measurably improve job skills training, employment opportunities, and livelihood outcomes within 12 jurisdictions in the Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Bahamas, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Five Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. Establishing a small-grant challenge grounded in evidence based research is vital to providing tangible and effective solutions. To achieve this, the SCEG program conducted two complementary assessments to identify the constraints and opportunities facing individuals seeking employment and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) interested in growing and hiring more workers: a survey of macro-level market constraints and an assessment of individuals’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP). | Country | Population | GDP (in billions) | GDP per economies, with populations capita ranging from 47,000 in Saint | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Antigua & Barbuda | 93,772 | 2.2 | $ 23,726 Kitts and Nevis to 11.3 million | | Bahamas | 401,283 | 15 | $ 39,455 in the Dominican Republic, all | | Barbados | 282,467 | 7.2 | $ 25,366 of which are either stable or | | Dominica | 66,205 | 0.7 | declining. Annual Gross $ 10,405 | | Dominican Republic | 11,427,557 | 124 | Domestic Products (GDPs) $ 10,876 | | Grenada | 117,207 | 1.4 | range from US$700 million in $ 11,872 | | Jamaica | 2,839,175 | 20 | Dominica to US$124 billion in $ 7,020 | | St Kitts & Nevis | 46,843 | 1.1 | the Dominican Republic, with a $ 22,771 | | St. Lucia | 179,744 | 2.6 | median GDP of US$3.65 billion $ 14,182 and median GDP per capita of | | St. Vincent & the 5 Grenadines | 100,616 | 1.2 | $ 11,501 US$12,027 (compared to a | | Suriname | 634,431 | 4.7 | GDP per capita of US$85,810 $ 7,431 | | Trinidad and Tobago | 1,368,333 | 26 | in the United States, according $ 19,315 | Table 1: Jurisdictions’ Populations and GDPs as of 2024 The 12 jurisdictions offer varied to the World Bank). Tourism is the dominant economic sector in some jurisdictions (e.g., Antigua and Barbuda) but a minor one in MERCY CORPS Constraints and Opportunities for Employment and Entrepreneurship in the Caribbean Region 4 others (e.g. Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago). Some jurisdictions are heavily oriented toward supply chains and economic linkages with the United States (e.g. Jamaica and Barbados) while others are more connected to Latin America (e.g. Dominican Republic). Given the economic diversity across the region, the research summarized in this report focused on cross-cutting constraints that are common across the region and can potentially be addressed with small-scale interventions and/or investments. The report briefly explains the methodology used and then outlines the key findings as well as the potential opportunities for change. ## 2. Methodology and Limitations of ## Findings ### 2.1 Market Constraints Research The research on market constraints utilized a literature review of relevant reports, as well as an analysis of data sets from the International Labor Organization (ILO), the World Bank, and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB). An independent consultant hired by Mercy Corps conducted the research. It is important to note there are significant information gaps in the region. For some jurisdictions, especially the smaller ones, there is little recent localized data, and they are generally not included in the data sets mentioned above (or the data included is from 2016 or earlier). In addition, the multilateral agencies include different countries in their definitions of the Caribbean region, so regional summaries are not fully comparable. For example, some reports include Belize, Haiti, and/or Guyana and omit the Dominican Republic or Suriname. Summary information that includes the entire Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC) was omitted from this report as the Caribbean is a relatively small portion of that region and notably different from other Latin American countries. Where feasible, the raw data was explored and results extrapolated for the 12 jurisdictions included in the SCEG Program. Additionally, some papers included in this literature review narrowed their focus to a few of the larger jurisdictions, usually the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. As a result, conclusions on specific jurisdictions based on findings presented in the SCEG report should not be formed at this stage without additional micro and site-specific research. However, the main themes and findings are applicable to the region, and broad conclusions can be drawn about overlapping constraints, as well as promising sectors and opportunities. ### 2.2 Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) Survey The KAP survey was conducted to supplement the analysis of macro-level constraints with additional context and depth at the individual level regarding knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to economic empowerment. The KAP survey was designed by the SCEG Program Manager and the Measurement, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Manager, with input from Mercy Corps’ Program Quality Advisor and Economic Development teams. The team researched aspects of economic development and designed questions to assess: • Financial Literacy • Economic Empowerment • Access to Resources • Income Generation • Workforce Participation • Entrepreneurship/Business Knowledge Mercy Corps utilized the OnaData platform to build the survey and collect data. To launch the KAP survey, Mercy Corps leveraged three modes of outreach to survey participants: 1) Mercy Corps’ Caribbean Resilience Initiative Facebook page; 2) Existing community-based organization (CBO) networks; and 3) CBOs identified in each jurisdiction during a stakeholder mapping exercise that occurred in December 2024. The survey was launched on June 29, 2025, and remained open for responses until July 14, 2025. Participants were also made aware that the survey would be anonymous. (See Annex E and G for participant demographic details and survey questions, respectively.) The KAP findings summarized in this report indicate a variety of trends across demographic factors and economic determinants. Mercy Corps set a target sample size of 385 respondents; 191 individuals completed the survey, which is not a large enough sample to be statistically representative of the Caribbean population. Therefore, findings are not statistically generalizable across the entire region. Furthermore, the demographic makeup of the KAP participants differs from the Caribbean in several aspects. For example: • 81% (157) of participants identified as female, compared to 51% in the Caribbean at large. 1 • 82% (159) of participants were over the age of 35, while only 42% of the overall region’s total population is over 35. 2 • Most of the participants were educated, with 86% (164) having a secondary education or above, compared to 54% of individuals in the Caribbean. 3 • Of the 12 jurisdictions where Mercy Corps solicited participation in the survey, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica have the largest populations, and therefore it was expected that roughly 73% of the sample would come from those two jurisdictions. However, these two countries only comprised 6% of the survey sample, while Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia and Dominica comprised 56% of the respondents, despite comprising only 8.5% of the region’s total population. For these reasons, while the KAP findings can identify high-level trends, the results must be interpreted within the context of existing data and its limitations. 1 Regional figure taken from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.MA.ZS?locations=S3 2 Regional stats taken from https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/. 3 Beuermann, D. W., et. al. eds., Are we there yet? The path toward sustainable private sector development in the Caribbean, IDB, 2024, pg. 58. ## 3. Key Findings ### 3.1 Small Island Economies All 12 jurisdictions in the SCEG program fall into the grouping of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), sharing the common characteristics that they depend on imports for key food, fuel, and manufactured goods, and thus are vulnerable to global price fluctuations, and tariffs, and have experienced overall low private sector investment and growth. 4 The Caribbean SIDS are also marked by high transportation and connectivity costs, despite their proximity to the North and South American land masses. The jurisdictions all have small populations and economies, except for the Dominican Republic, which is the eighth largest economy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). 5 Economic growth has been relatively slow for decades and the region is marked by high government debt. While the region receives high foreign direct investment, local economic growth returns are low, which suggests the region suffers from low productivity, low rates of technological change within the private sector, and an inability to turn that investment into innovative economic activity. 6 Exacerbating this situation, the Caribbean has one of the highest emigration rates in the world for skilled workers, with assessments calculating that up to 68% of the population with post-secondary education leaves the region to pursue better job opportunities, primarily in the US and the UK. 7 Not only does this lead to an undersupply in skilled workers (as explained more below), “but the net effect of migration and remittances on growth tends to be negative for the Caribbean, which has been characterized by brain drain and relatively small remittance receipts.” 8 Additionally, the Caribbean population is aging, as annual population growth fell from 0.61% in 2000 to 0.37% in 2023, leading to an ever-smaller working age population. 9 (See Annex A for emigration data by jurisdiction). Recent data on primary economic sectors cannot be found for all 12 jurisdictions, but the ILO collected data on primary employment sectors for the Dominican Republic, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago. 10 Figures 2-4 show wholesale and retail trade and vehicle repair as the largest employment sectors in all three countries, ranging from 14% (Trinidad and Tobago) of the working population to 20% (Dominican Republic). However, the education sector employs 19% of working women in Trinidad and Tobago, while construction is the largest employer of men at 17%. 4 For more information on SIDS see https://www.un.org/ohrlls/content/about-small-island-developing-states. 5 County Private Sector Diagnostic: Creating Markets in the Dominican Republic, International Finance Corporation, October 2023, pg. 1. 6 Beuermann, D. W., et. al. eds., Are we there yet? The path toward sustainable private sector development in the Caribbean, IDB, 2024, pg. 36. 7Ibid., pg. 71, 72. 8 Beuermann, D. W., et. al. eds., Are we there yet? The path toward sustainable private sector development in the Caribbean, IDB, 2024, pg. 69. 9 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Population, Development and Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean: draft second regional report on the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development, 2024, pg. 93. 10 Data taken from ILO Statistics on Sectoral Employment. St. Lucia data collected in 2024; Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago data gathered in 2023. Accommodation and food services are significant employers of women in the Dominican Republic (11%) and St. Lucia (16%) (see Figures 2-4). 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% Total Female Male Figure 3: Saint Lucia Employment Sectors 2024 Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles Accommodation and food service activities Construction Public administration and defence; compulsory social security Administrative and support service activities Agriculture; forestry and fishing Transportation and storage Education Manufacturing Human health and social work activities Household activities for own use Other service activities Financial and insurance activities Professional, scientific and technical activities 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% Total Female Male Figure 2: Dominican Republic Employment Sectors 2023 Wholesale and retail trade; vehicle & motorcycle repar Manufacturing Construction Accommodation and food service activities Agriculture; forestry and fishing Other service activities Education Transportation and storage Public administration and defence; compulsory social security Household activity for own use Human health and social work activities Arts, entertainment and recreation Administrative and support service activities Professional, scientific and technical activities ### 3.2 Tourism Each jurisdiction has a different mix of sectors driving its economy, but tourism continues to be a significant source of employment and contributor to gross domestic product (GDP) across the region. Tourism contributed between 11% and 22% of the region’s GDP in 2023 (depending on which countries are included). 11 Data from 2019 shows the tourism sector directly employed 18% of the region’s labor force and indirectly sustained another 43.1% (see Figure 5). 12 However, there is diversity among the selected jurisdictions in the percentage of their economy that is indirectly sustained by tourism, ranging from less than 10% in Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, to 11 World Bank. 2025. Rethinking Caribbean Tourism: Strategies for a More Sustainable Future. pg. xii. The 22% estimate includes Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It omits Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname and adds in Belize and Sint Maarten. 12 Table reprinted from Muhummed, A., Beyond tourism: A policy framework for economic diversification and job creation in the Caribbean, ILO, 21 May 2025. The Dominican Republic is included in the Latin American region in ILO calculations and there is no equivalent data available for that country. 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18% 20% Total Female Male Figure 4: Trinidad And Tobago Employment Sectors 2023 Wholesale and retail trade; vehicles and motorcycle repair Construction Education Public administration and defence; compulsory social security Other service activities Information and communication Manufacturing Accommodation and food service activities Transportation and storage Water supply; sewage, waste management Agriculture; forestry and fishing Financial and insurance activities Arts, entertainment and recreation Mining and quarrying Figure 5: Direct and Indirect Employment in the Tourism Industry as a Percentage of Total Employment (2019) 91% in Antigua and Barbuda. While the Coronavirus (COVID) pandemic devastated the tourism industry in 2020 and 2021, by 2023 and 2024 tourism rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in every jurisdiction, and many were setting records for tourist arrivals. Tourism is an especially significant employer of women and youth, with women making up “57–70% of workers directly employed in the hospitality as well as food and beverage industries pre pandemic, higher than in all other sectors combined in the Caribbean” (see Figure 6). 13 The sector is also the highest direct employer of youth (aged 15-24), with the Caribbean jurisdictions holding five of the top 10 spots globally for direct youth employment in the travel and tourism sector as a share of total national employment (see Figure 7). 14 Unfortunately, “most jobs in the sector remain precarious, low-paid, informal, and highly gender segregated.” 15 Jobs are also often insecure because of the sector’s seasonal nature and exposure to natural disasters. As a result, “while the tourism sector offers broad employment opportunities, especially for first-time job seekers, the nature of these jobs…makes it difficult for workers to move up the economic ladder or build resilience against shocks. Often, the sector functions as a revolving door: high turnover, low retention, and few long-term career pathways.” 16 In addition, the tourism sector’s contribution to a diverse local private sector is low because of the historical focus on cruises and all-inclusive resorts rather than local experiences. In 2019, the average amount spent locally per individual tourist in the Caribbean (US$712) was half that in the 13 Rethinking Caribbean Tourism: Strategies for a More Sustainable Future, World Bank, 2025, pg. xii. Chart taken from pg. xiii. 14 Both charts reprinted from Rethinking Caribbean Tourism: Strategies for a More Sustainable Future, World Bank, 2025, pg. xiii. 15 Muhummed, A., Beyond tourism: A policy framework for economic diversification and job creation in the Caribbean, International Labor Organization, 21 May 2025. 16 Llovet Montanes, R., et al., Beyond the Beach Beyond the Beach: Why Job Quality in Caribbean Tourism Matters More Than Ever, June 26, 2025, World Bank. Figure 6: Direct Travel & Tourism Sector Employment, as Percentage of Total National Employment by Age Group (for top 10 countries with highest proportion of young people in2019) Figure 6: Tourism Direct Employment by Gender in Hotels and Restaurants (2019 or last available year) Figure 7: Direct Travel & Tourism sector employment, as share of total national employment, top 10 countries for proportion of young people (2019) Pacific (US$1,428).” 17 To increase the sector’s impact on local jobs, incomes, and profits, it is vital to strengthen local economic linkages by increasing local enterprise engagement directly with tourists and connecting international companies with local supply chains, for example farmers, artisans, and service providers. It is also crucial to increase capacity in local tourism businesses and their workforce, particularly in the areas of digitalization of operations and sustainable tourism. 18 ### 3.3 Labor Force Participation Labor force participation rates in the region are low, at 64%, although there is variation among jurisdictions. 19 An ILO report using 2023-2024 data for nine of the 12 jurisdictions showed labor force participation ranged from 55% for Trinid

Caribbean Diaspora Investing 2026: Costs, Returns, Risks Skip to content The Caribbean received an estimated US$20.9 billion in remittances in 2025, according to IDB regional estimates. Jamaica alone took in a record US$3.49 billion, about 15% of GDP. Most of that money pays for rent, food and school fees. Very little becomes ownership. That gap is the case for Caribbean diaspora investing. In 2026, governments started building instruments to close it: Guyana announced a diaspora bond in May 2026 for overseas Guyanese to fund public infrastructure. Terms are still pending. Guyana and Barbados announced the proposed Trident Arrow Investment Fund, open to citizens of both countries, covering utilities, technology and agro-processing. Jamaica gained a regulated route for small investors: Blue Mahoe Capital opened a US equity crowdfunding offering for housing development, with a US$100 minimum. For an investor in Toronto, London or New York, the question is practical. What does it cost to participate, where are the returns, and which country fits your capital and risk tolerance? Need a Freelancer for This? Hire verified talent on Fiverr — starting from $5. No contracts, no hassle. Browse Fiverr Freelancers → Registration Costs: Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana and Barbados Before you invest, you need a legal structure. Government filing fees vary widely across the four largest English-speaking Caribbean markets. Country Sole trader Company (government fees) Approx. USD (company) Jamaica J$2,500 (~US$16) J$27,000 ~US$171 Trinidad and Tobago TT$20 + TT$220 certificate ~TT$600 filing ~US$88 Guyana n/a G$63,900 ~US$305 Barbados n/a BBD 780 (incl. name reservation) ~US$390 USD figures are approximate at September 2026 rates. Legal and compliance fees are extra. What the table does not show is professional fees. In Trinidad, total setup with legal and compliance support runs about TT$3,785 (~US$560). In Guyana, attorney fees add roughly G$150,000 (~US$720) plus VAT. Barbados charges BBD 3,000 (~US$1,500) to register an external company. The practical read: Testing a small venture: Jamaica's J$2,500 sole trader registration is the lowest-risk entry. Forming a company: Trinidad has the lowest government filing fees. Barbados has the highest. Hiring a lawyer: budget US$500 to US$1,000+ on top of fees in any of the four. → Use the free Caribbean Business Registration Cost Estimator at MetricSuite.tools to calculate this instantly, no signup required. Guyana: The Highest-Growth Option Guyana is the fastest-growing economy in the Western Hemisphere, and diaspora capital is already moving in. TriStar Shore Base: In February 2026, the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) facilitated a US$250 million diaspora-funded maritime project, led by US-based Guyanese investor Kris Persaud. Phase 1 (US$100 million) is operational, with two further phases planned for 2026. Local Content Act: The revised Act, effective January 2026, aims to let families and diaspora investors take part in the oil and gas supply chain, not just large firms. Diaspora bond: President Irfaan Ali announced it on May 26, 2026, during Guyana's 60th Independence celebrations. As of late September, the government had not published size, returns or eligibility. In a September 24 New York address, Ali said a dedicated diaspora investment vehicle was coming soon, naming the planned fertiliser plant and gas bottling facility as possible projects. The risk: oil economies are volatile, infrastructure timelines slip, and the flagship instruments are announced but not yet open. Guyana suits investors with a higher risk tolerance and patience for execution. Jamaica: Real Estate, Agriculture and the JSE Jamaica's pitch is different. It is a mature market with a stock exchange, a familiar legal system and the region's strongest diaspora networks. Stock market: The Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) has been courting diaspora investors through overseas roadshows and diaspora conferences. The main friction is opening a Jamaican brokerage account from abroad. Real estate: Historically where most diaspora capital goes. Blue Mahoe Capital's Reg CF offering, launched June 11, 2026, sells shares at US$10 with a US$100 minimum, funding housing developments in Jamaica. Agriculture: The under-explored sector. Agro-Invest is recruiting diaspora investment, and cocoa, coconut and coffee are the commodities officials most often point to. The trade-off: Jamaica is the most accessible market but also has the most competition for deals. Expect steady returns rather than frontier growth, which suits investors who prioritise capital preservation. Trinidad and Tobago: Energy and Diversification Trinidad's economy runs on energy, but the investment case is diversification. The Trinidad and Tobago Investment Promotion Agency (InvesTT) targets priority sectors including: Agribusiness and manufacturing Downstream energy and cleantech Tourism and creative industries IT, financial services and maritime The country is also pursuing renewable energy and data centre investment. For diaspora investors, Trinidad offers the region's most developed financial services sector and an English common law system. The trade-off: heavier dependence on hydrocarbon revenue than Jamaica or Barbados, which means more exposure to energy price swings. It fits investors with experience in energy, manufacturing or logistics. Barbados: Regulatory Certainty Barbados has one of the highest per-capita incomes in CARICOM and the region's most sophisticated regulatory environment. It is a partner in the proposed Trident Arrow Investment Fund with Guyana. Its limited farmland pushes agricultural investment toward hydroponics and aquaculture. The Welcome Stamp remote-work visa, launched in 2020, has kept demand for rental housing from long-stay visitors. The trade-off: Barbados is the most expensive market for property and company setup. Returns are lower than Guyana's, but so is the risk. It suits investors who want predictability. What It Costs to Hire Local Staff Employer statutory contributions sit on top of gross salary, and they vary by country. Country Employer contribution What it covers Guyana 8.4% NIS Trinidad and Tobago 10.8% NIS Jamaica 12.5% NIS, NHT, Education Tax, HEART/NSTA Barbados 13.0% NIS (12.75%) + Resilience and Regeneration Fund (0.25%) On a US$1,000 monthly salary, that is the difference between US$84 and US$130 a month in employer cost, before any benefits. → Use the free Caribbean Employee True Cost Calculator at MetricSuite.tools to calculate this instantly, no signup required. Pair it with the Caribbean PAYE Take-Home Pay Calculator to see what your employee actually keeps after tax. The CSME: What Free Movement Actually Gets You The CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) is meant to allow free movement of goods, services, skills and capital. In practice it is narrower than the name suggests. Full free movement of people applies only among four states that opted in from October 1, 2025: Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Skilled nationals in approved categories can work across participating states without a work permit. CARICOM has continued to add categories, including aviation personnel in 2026. The Bahamas is a CARICOM member but not part of the CSME. Haiti and Montserrat participate only partially. The takeaway: CSME helps with labour mobility and with qualifying goods under Rules of Origin. It is not a single market like the EU. If your plan depends on moving goods or staff between islands, check each country's rules. → Use the free CSME Tariff Lookup at MetricSuite.tools to calculate this instantly, no signup required. Caribbean Diaspora Investing: Where to Start Registration fees, employer contributions and CSME rules are knowable before you commit a dollar. Run them first. Pick your risk profile: Guyana for growth, Jamaica for access, Trinidad for industry, Barbados for stability. Price your structure: sole trader to test, company to scale, with legal fees included. Model one local hire at full employer cost before setting a salary. This week, run your country shortlist through the Caribbean business tools and compare the total cost of entry side by side. Key Takeaways The Caribbean receives around US$21 billion a year in remittances, but little of it becomes ownership. Guyana's diaspora bond and the Guyana-Barbados Trident Arrow fund are announced, but terms are not yet public. Trinidad has the lowest government company filing fee. Barbados has the highest. Employer contributions range from 8.4% (Guyana) to 13% (Barbados) above gross salary. Full CSME free movement covers only four states, so check country rules before moving goods or staff. Need help setting up your Caribbean business? Hire vetted freelancers for business plans, financial models, bookkeeping and investor decks on Fiverr. Find a Business Expert on Fiverr Affiliate link. MetricSuite may earn a commission at no cost to you. Frequently Asked Questions What is the cheapest Caribbean country to register a business in? For a sole trader, Jamaica at J$2,500 (about US$16). For a company, Trinidad and Tobago has the lowest government filing fees at around TT$600 (about US$88). Barbados is highest at BBD 780 (about US$390). Legal fees are extra in every case. Can I invest in the Caribbean without moving there? Yes. The Guyana diaspora bond, the Trident Arrow fund and Jamaica housing crowdfunding are all designed for overseas investors. The main friction is opening local bank or brokerage accounts and handling compliance from abroad. Which Caribbean country has the best returns right now? There is no single answer. Guyana has the highest growth and the highest risk. Jamaica has the most accessible markets. Barbados has the most regulatory stability. Trinidad has the strongest industrial base. Match the country to your risk tolerance and sector knowledge. What is the Trident Arrow Investment Fund? A proposed joint Guyana-Barbados fund, announced in May 2026, that would let ordinary citizens of both countries invest in infrastructure, utilities, technology and agro-processing. Guyana's diaspora bond is a separate instrument. How much does it cost to hire staff in the Caribbean? Employer contributions add 8.4% (Guyana), 10.8% (Trinidad and Tobago), 12.5% (Jamaica) or 13% (Barbados) on top of gross salary. Are remittances the same as investment? No. Remittances pay for consumption such as rent, food and school fees. Investment buys ownership or a return. The 2026 policy push across the region is about converting more of that flow into ownership. Sources Remittances IDB, Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean Ease After 2025 Surge News Americas, Caribbean Remittances by Major Countries (IDB 2025 estimates) Caribbean National Weekly, Caribbean remittances surge (Bank of Jamaica data) Guyana Kaieteur News, GO-Invest facilitates US$250M diaspora-funded maritime infrastructure investment Guyana DPI, Gov't to launch diaspora bond within one week News Room Guyana, Special investment venture for diaspora soon (Sept 25, 2026) INews Guyana (Local Content Act coverage) Guyana and Barbados Guyana Chronicle, Guyana, Barbados eye new investment fund Kaieteur News, Guyana and Barbados to establish joint investment fund Jamaica Blue Mahoe Capital, Caribbean real estate opens to retail investors via equity crowdfunding Jamaica Stock Exchange Jamaica Information Service (Agro-Invest diaspora agriculture) Jamaica Gleaner Region CARICOM, CSME and free movement World Bank Documents MetricSuite tools Caribbean Business Tools hub GET NOTIFIED Rates change. Tools launch. Articles drop. Duty rates, mobile money fees, new tools, and new articles, the moment we publish them. Email Address* FIRSTNAME LASTNAME Need a Freelancer? Hire verified talent on Fiverr — starting from $5. Browse Fiverr → Stop Undercharging! Use our Freelance Day Rate Calculator to factor in taxes and profit. Calculate My Rate → Need to Bill a Client? Create professional PDF invoices instantly. No sign-up. 100% Private. Create Invoice Now → Caribbean Diaspora Investing 2026: Costs, Returns, Risks October 1, 2026 The Caribbean received an estimated US$20.9 billion in remittances in 2025, according to IDB regional estimates. Jamaica alone took in a record US$3.49 billion, about 15% of GDP. Most of ... Read more Returning Resident Customs Rules 2026: 4 Countries Compared September 30, 2026 You have sold the house, booked the container, and set a flight date. What most returnees have not done is check what their destination will charge to bring their own ... 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# The economics of rotating savings and credit associations: evidence from the Jamaican `Partner' Journal of Development Economics. Published: 1999-10-01. 111 citations. ## Authors - Sudhanshu Handa (International Food Policy Research Institute): h-index 44; 6,322 citations; corresponding author - Claremont D. Kirton (University of the West Indies): h-index 7; 406 citations ## Topics - Microfinance and Financial Inclusion - Islamic Finance and Banking Studies - Taxation and Compliance Studies ## References - Oliver E. Williamson. The Economics and Sociology of Organization. 1988;159-185. doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-3536-6_8. - Stefan Klonner. Rotating Savings and Credit Associations as Insurance. RePEc: Research Papers in Economics. 2000. - Clifford Geertz. The Rotating Credit Association: A "Middle Rung" in Development. Economic Development and Cultural Change. 1962;10(3):241-263. doi:10.1086/449960. - Robert Anderson. Rotating Credit Associations in India. Economic Development and Cultural Change. 1966;14(3):334-339. doi:10.1086/450168. - Sudhanshu Handa, Damien King. Structural adjustment policies, income distribution and poverty: A review of the jamaican experience. World Development. 1997;25(6):915-930. doi:10.1016/s0305-750x(97)00005-3. - Rogier van den Brink, Jean‐Paul Chavas. The Microeconomics of an Indigenous African Institution: The Rotating Savings and Credit Association. Economic Development and Cultural Change. 1997;45(4):745-772. doi:10.1086/452306. - Timothy J. Besley, Stephen Coate, Glenn C. Loury. THE ECONOMICS OF ROTATING SAVINGS AND CREDIT ASSOCIATIONS. DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). 1990;83(4):792-810. - Faye V Harrison. Women in Jamaica’s urban informal economy: insights from a Kingston slum. New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. 1988;62(3-4):103-128. doi:10.1163/13822373-90002040. - Mayada M. Baydas, Zakaria Bahloul, Dale W. Adams. Informal finance in Egypt: “Banks” within banks. World Development. 1995;23(4):651-661. doi:10.1016/0305-750x(94)00150-w. - Shirley G. Ardener. The Comparative Study of Rotating Credit Associations. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 1964;94(2):201. doi:10.2307/2844382. - Oliver E. Williamson. The Logic of Economic Organization. The Journal of Law Economics and Organization. 1988. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.jleo.a036949. - S. Anderson, Jean‐Marie Baland. The Economics of Roscas and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2002;117(3):963-995. doi:10.1162/003355302760193931. - Richard J. Salvucci. Consequences of Structural Adjustment: A Review of the Jamaican Experience. Hispanic American Historical Review. 1996;76(2):375-376. doi:10.1215/00182168-76.2.375. - Elizabeth M. Thomas‐Hope, Diane J. Austin. Urban Life in Kingston, Jamaica: The Culture and Class Ideology of Two Neighbourhoods. Bulletin of Latin American Research. 1986;5(2):132. doi:10.2307/3338666. - Industries, Firms, and Jobs. 1988. doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-3536-6. - Margaret Jean A. Besson. Land tenure and kinship in a Jamaican village. ERA. 1974. - Oliver E. Williamson. The Economics and Sociology of Organization. 2017;159-186. doi:10.4324/9780203788639-11. - Dale W. Adams, Marie L. Canavesi. Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Bolivia 1. 2019;313-323. doi:10.4324/9780429034572-23.

CDB Launches SheTrades Caribbean Tech It Up Facility to Commercialise Clean Energy Research and Solutions | Caribbean Development Bank Skip to main content News Release CDB Launches SheTrades Caribbean Tech It Up Facility to Commercialise Clean Energy Research and Solutions Published on Sep 30, 2026 The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), through its SheTrades Caribbean Hub and with support from the Government of Canada-funded Supporting Resilient Green Energy (SuRGE) Programme , has launched the SheTrades Caribbean Tech It Up Facility, a new initiative valued at USD550,000 to support women-led businesses in developing innovative clean energy solutions and accelerating the Caribbean’s transition to a sustainable energy future. The Facility will provide targeted technical assistance to help women-led businesses in Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname develop and transform innovative clean energy concepts and solutions into commercially viable products and services. Women-led MSMEs continue to face barriers in accessing technology, financing, technical expertise and business networks, particularly within emerging green economy sectors. The SheTrades Caribbean Tech It Up Facility addresses these challenges by creating pathways for women entrepreneurs to participate more fully in the rapidly growing sustainable energy sector. Through the project, which is part of the SheTrades Caribbean Programme, eligible Caribbean women-led businesses, including scientists, researchers or technologists will receive technical assistance and financial support over the three-year period from 2026–2028 to increase the adoption of energy-efficient technologies and practices. Areas of focus include developing and commercialising clean energy innovations, building technical and business management skills, accessing financing opportunities, and integrating into regional and global clean energy value chains. “The transition to sustainable energy presents significant opportunities for innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth,” said Dr. Isaac Solomon, Vice-President, Operations, at the Caribbean Development Bank. “The SheTrades Caribbean Tech It Up Facility is designed to bridge the gap between innovation and commercialisation by providing women entrepreneurs with the skills, mentorship, financing and technical support needed to transform promising ideas into market-ready solutions.” Under the project, the SheTrades Tech It Up R&D Grant will also provide USD100,000 in funding support for a women-led business operating in the field of science, technology or product development and innovation to develop commercially viable solutions in energy efficiency, renewable energy applications or smart energy systems. Eligible applicants must be women-led enterprises operating in Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname which demonstrate the potential to develop innovative products, services or technologies that contribute to sustainable energy transition. Applicants may be at the ideation, research, prototyping, testing, pilot implementation, or early-stage development and commercialisation phases. Projects will be assessed based on innovation, technical feasibility, patentability, commercial viability, environmental impact, and the ability to create scalable and sustainable economic opportunities. The successful applicant will receive funding support, technical mentorship, business development coaching, intellectual property guidance, market readiness support, and must collaborate with Caribbean and Canadian academic institutions engaged in research, collaborative innovation and solution development in clean energy and/or energy transition. Speaking on behalf of Global Affairs Canada, Her Excellency Brenda Wills, High Commissioner of Canada to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, said: “Canada is proud to support initiatives that advance women’s economic empowerment while contributing to climate resilience and sustainable development. Through the SuRGE Programme, we are helping create opportunities for women entrepreneurs to participate in the clean energy transition and develop innovative solutions that generate lasting economic and environmental benefits.” The initiative is expected to contribute to the development of market-ready energy solutions, strengthen the participation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) entrepreneurship, foster academic-industry collaboration, and increase women’s participation in the Caribbean’s emerging green economy. As a central feature of the Regional Hub’s implementation, partnerships between Caribbean and Canadian universities will serve to strengthen research and innovation ecosystems and provide entrepreneurs with access to research commercialisation expertise, innovation labs and facilities for knowledge exchange through technical cooperation. Applications for the SheTrades Caribbean Tech It Up R&D Grant Facility will open in Q1 2027 through the Caribbean Development Bank’s Submittable Portal . Detailed eligibility criteria, application guidelines and submission requirements will be published ahead of the launch of the call for proposals. ### News Releases Related News News Releases Sep 18, 2026 CDB-Supported Water Project to Strengthen Climate Resilience in Saint Lucia News Releases Sep 8, 2026 CDB Support Strengthens Enterprise Development in St. Vincent and the Grenadines News Releases Aug 12, 2026 CDB and World Bank Agree on Joint Actions to Accelerate Development Programme in Grenada

##### caribbean ai taskforce final report on ai harmonization dr craig ramlal chair caribbean ai taskforce ## The Growing AI Market, USD Tn 0.19tn 0.23tn 0.39tn 0.54tn 4.80tn -0.4 0.6 1.6 2.6 3.6 4.6 5.6 2023 2024 2025 2026 2033 (projected) ## Global AI market expansion against Latin American and Caribbean capture Projections — indicative 6.6% of global GDP generated by Latin America and the Caribbean 1.12% of global AI investment captured by the same region • AI integration could add up to USD 0.5 trillion to the LAC economy by 2030 a potential 5.4% boost to regional GDP • The IMF projects AI could raise a developing country’s GDP by 2.7–3.5% over a decade, under favourable conditions • Within the Caribbean sub-region the deficit is more acute: AI-native enterprises number in the single digits One of the starkest investment-to-output mismatches of any major world region ## The connectivity paradox Appears digitally engaged ~75% of the population of Caribbean SIDS used the Internet in 2023 8.4% annual growth in SIDS Internet use 2014–2023, above the 6.7% global rate >5% of GNI per capita spent on broadband — against the 2% affordability target Citizens consume AI-enabled services; almost none of the infrastructure, data governance or value capture happens regionally 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 % of individuals Individuals Using the Internet, CARICOM Member States (% of population) Haiti Saint Lucia Belize Grenada St. Vincent and the Grenadines St. Kitts and Nevis Antigua and Barbuda Suriname Barbados Guyana Trinidad and Tobago Jamaica Bahamas ## Labour-market exposure is concentrated exactly ## where the region earns 26–38% of employment across LAC countries studied exposed to generative AI 8–14% in the “augmentation potential” category, where AI could enhance productivity 2–5% in the category presenting potential for full automation >40% of women’s employment exposed in Caribbean and Pacific SIDS The gender asymmetry • ~29% of female-dominated occupations were exposed to generative AI, against ~16% of male-dominated occupations • Exposure is concentrated in formal, urban and relatively higher-income occupations requiring more education The concentrated sectors • ~60,000 jobs in global services and business-process outsourcing; ICT/BPO industry estimated at ~US$900 million • Traditionally concentrated in customer-service, administrative and transaction-processing work; the routine, codifiable functions most susceptible to generative AI • Workers displaced without a transition mechanism often leave the labour force or the region, intensifying brain drain The AI Research Gap The one capability that cannot be procured, harmonised or imported 154 validated technology startups mapped across 15 Caribbean countries 15 of 15 assessed ecosystems placed in the earliest “Activation Phase” 60% of surveyed organizations delayed in implementing digital-transformation plans 73% of total R&D expenditure carried by business across the OECD; a risk absorption role absent here The structural constraint • Caribbean startup finance is thin: ventures depend on founders’ savings, family and friends; formal angel networks are rare • Financial systems remain oriented to collateral-based bank lending, not the patient, loss-tolerant equity early-stage ventures require • The risk is not that inventions become foreign-owned, but that research stays uncommercialized or its value is captured outside the region It is achievable at Caribbean scale • Jamaica’s BIGEE programme, backed by an initial US$25 million IDB facility • The EU / IDB Lab-financed CARIBEquity blended-finance facility for Caribbean private-sector innovation • Institutional anchors already exist: UWI’s AI Innovation Centre, UTT, University of Guyana, Anton de Kom University, UTech, and emerging OECS nodes What is missing is not the institutions; it is the partnership, support & financing architecture that converts them into a pipeline #### Intentionally left blank ## CARICOM is the only comparable bloc with no collective AI instrument | Body / Bloc | Instrument | Nature | | --- | --- | --- | | European Union | EU Artificial Intelligence Act | Binding regulation | | Council of Europe | Framework Convention on AI | Binding treaty | | African Union | Continental AI Strategy | Strategic framework | | Organization of American States | Declaration & Plan of Action on AI (incl. MIGDIA) | Declaratory / guidance | | Arab League (via ALECSO) | Charter on AI Ethics | Declaratory | | ASEAN | AI Governance and Ethics Guide | Voluntary guidance | | OECD | AI Principles | Voluntary principles | | G7 | Hiroshima AI Process | Voluntary process | | G20 | AI Principles | Voluntary principles | | Latin America (20 states, incl. 6 Caribbean) | Declaración de Santiago (Oct. 2023) | Declaratory | | CARICOM | None | — | ### What harmonized AI policies and recommendations must ### actually do Institutional Shared regional oversight bodies pooling regulatory talent no single state can afford Technical Open data standards, API compatibility, data portability to prevent vendor lock-in Organisational Aligned procurement and algorithmic auditing workflows across ministries Legal Cross-border regulatory compatibility so an AI service lawful in one state is lawful in another Ethical Unified values, using the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI as the baseline Semantic Shared regional definitions of “high-risk AI”, “autonomy”, “bias” to prevent legal fragmentation Armstrong Alexis, Deputy Secretary General, CARICOM Elvia Smith-Maduro Permanent Secretary, Government of the Virgin Islands Dave Dowrich Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America Preetam Maloor Head of Emerging Technologies, International Telecommunications Union Nicholas Fuller Vice President, AI & Automation, IBM Annie Baldeo Executive Officer, Economics, Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago Michelle Grell-Bereaux Lead of International Digital Development Affairs, The Utilities, Regulation and Competition Authority, Bahamas Nia Nanan Senior Research Analyst, Caribbean Telecommunications Union Junior McIntyre Deputy National Chief Digital Officer, Trinidad and Tobago John Lewis Director, ICT Government of Trinidad & Tobago Edmund Burke Digital ICT Director, Government of Grenada Tracy Hackshaw Chef d’Enterprise, Universal Postal Union, UN Opal Neil Former Senior Director Regulatory Affairs, Columbus Communications Michelle Garcia Marketing & Comms Specialist, Caribbean Telecommunications Union Haley Trott Deputy Secretary, Government of the Virgin Islands Deidre Cousins Chief Information Officer, GraceKennedy Ltd Sharukh Hussain Director Innovation Unit, Office of the Prime Minister, Guyana Kurleigh Prescod Chief Executive Officer, Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago Cordel Green Executive Director, Broadcast Commission, Jamaica Amit Uttamchandani Technology Consultant, Caribbean Signal Vilas Dhar President, Patrick McGovern Foundation Francola John Regional Focal Point, CTU-NoW Russell Gardiner Director of Technology, Turks and Caicos Islands Telecommunications Commission Desiree Zachariah Manager, Business and Data Analytics, Ministry of Information Communications Technologies, Antigua and Barbuda Charles Douglas Director, CANTO Tariq Mohammed Chair, Caribbean ICT Youth Network Gary Kalloo Director, Business Development & Implementation, Caribbean Telecommunications Union Kirk Sookram Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Telecommunications Authority Trinidad and Tobago Richard Feveck IT Specialist, Caribbean Telecommunications Union Sean Thorpe Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Computing, University of Technology, Jamaica Shanea Lewis Policy Analyst, Caribbean Telecommunications Union Leslie Lee Fook Director, INCUS Services Rick Logan-Stanford Team Lead – Infrastructure, Policies and Legislation, Ministry of Homeland Security, Trinidad and Tobago Chair: Craig Ramlal Executive Director, Artificial Intelligence Innovation Centre, UWI-STA Vice Chair: Christopher Reckord Chairman, National AI Task Force, Jamaica Coordinator: Shernon Osepa Strategic Advisory, Caribbean Telecommunications Union • 36 members. • members serving in their own capacity from private sector, NGOs and public sector (nominates from 7 countries), multilaterals… • support from ITU, CARICOM secretariat #### Task Force ## Timeline COTED-ICT Recognised the work of the Caribbean AI Taskforce as important for the formulation of regionally harmonised AI policies for CARICOM member states Supported by CARICOM Secretariat and ITU | Taskforce & Council | Consultations across stakeholder groups as | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | meetings, interviews and | well as media | | | | documentation | both formal and informal. | | | Jul 25 Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July 26 Launched Resolution Interim Report Final Report CAIF-2026 ## Pillar 1: Data, Digital Infrastructure & Compute WHAT TO D O Recommendation 1: Pursue a shared, regionally anchored digital and data infrastructure strategy. a) Governments should prioritize harmonization of data-protection and cross-border data-flow frameworks across CARICOM, reducing the current fragmentation that constrains both regional data-sharing and AI model development. b) Regional institutions should explore the feasibility of shared, distributed compute and data infrastructure, modeled on small-state and distributed approaches. c) Governments should prioritize climate-hardening of any shared digital infrastructure investment, given the region's exceptional climate exposure. d) Open-source and open-standard approaches should be prioritized over proprietary lock-in wherever feasible, to preserve future flexibility and reduce long-run dependency costs. ## Pillar 2: Governance, Ethics & Standards WHAT TO D O Recommendation 2: Establish a harmonized Caribbean AI governance framework, anchored in existing international norms. a) CARICOM should develop a regional AI governance framework anchored explicitly in the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, avoiding duplication of normative work already settled at the global level. b) The framework should establish minimum regional standards for algorithmic transparency, risk classification, and public-sector AI procurement, while allowing member states flexibility in domestic implementation appropriate to their institutional capacity. c) Governments should designate or strengthen an existing regional body, rather than necessarily creating a new one, to provide ongoing oversight and coordination, consistent with the principle that policy survives longest when anchored in institutions that already outlast political cycles. d) Member states should expand participation in UNESCO's Readiness Assessment Methodology and equivalent diagnostic tools, to build a shared, comparable evidence base for governance design across the region. e) The regional governance framework should require AI systems deployed in or serving the Caribbean to be assessed for disparate performance and impact across Caribbean languages, dialects, and demographic groups before public-sector deployment, and CARICOM should develop coordinated capacity to detect and respond to AI-generated disinformation. ## Pillar 3: Economic Transformation, Innovation & Industry WHAT TO D O Recommendation 3: Sequence economic-transformation policy from foundational adoption toward higher-value innovation, built on a structured research-to-commercialization pathway, rather than attempting to leapfrog directly to frontier development. a) Governments should prioritize policies that lower the cost and complexity of AI adoption for existing micro, small, and medium enterprises before prioritizing frontier research investment, given the region's current readiness profile. b) Regional and national innovation-support mechanisms (sandboxes, challenge funds, accelerator support) should be designed to draw on patient, blended capital appropriate to the longer innovation cycles AI ventures require, rather than short-cycle grant funding alone. c) Governments should evaluate the case for Caribbean-specific language and data resources, including support for regional languages and Creoles currently underserved by global AI tools, as a distinct strategic asset rather than a marginal accessibility feature. d) Trade and investment-promotion bodies should treat AI-related foreign direct investment and outsourcing opportunities as a distinct strategic category, given the scale of global capital currently being mobilized by comparator regions. e) Regional authorities should establish a staged research-to-commercialization financing pathway, anchored in university-based research institutions, that funds fundamental research (multi-year, patient capital, evaluated on knowledge and talent outputs) and applied research (shorter-cycle, milestone-based grants, evaluated on prototype and adoption evidence) under distinct instruments, and that channels a defined, published share of resulting commercial returns, licensing income, or spin-out proceeds back into upstream research funding, so that public investment in AI research compounds over time rather than ending at the pilot or publication stage. ## Pillar 4: Talent & Skills WHAT TO D O Recommendation 4: Build a tiered talent pipeline spanning mass digital literacy through to specialist AI research capacity. a) Governments should prioritize foundational digital and AI literacy at scale, across the public sector, education system, and small business community, recognizing that this tier reaches the largest number of beneficiaries per unit of investment. b) Regional tertiary institutions, led by the University of the West Indies and equivalent national institutions, should be supported in developing applied AI and data-science training pathways targeted at practitioner level public and private sector roles c) A smaller number of advanced research and specialist scholarships should be maintained to retain a pipeline of regional AI expertise, recognizing that this tier will necessarily reach far fewer people but is necessary to sustain the other tiers over time d) Governments should treat organizational and integration barriers to AI adoption, not only raw technical skills gaps, as a distinct and addressable category of the talent challenge, consistent with recent regional survey evidence. e) Alongside building new AI talent, governments and regional training institutions should design transition pathways, reskilling toward higher-value analytical, quality-assurance, and AI-supervision roles, for workers in occupations most exposed to generative-AI displacement. ## Pillar 5: Public Sector AI WHAT TO D O Recommendation 5: Use public procurement and public-service delivery as the proving ground for Caribbean AI governance standards. a) Governments should pilot AI-enabled public service delivery in a small number of high-value, low-risk domains (such as routine administrative processing or citizen information services) before extending to higher-risk domains such as benefits determination or law enforcement. b) Public procurement standards for AI systems should require basic transparency and auditability commitments from vendors, consistent with the governance framework proposed in Pillar 2, so that public-sector adoption itself reinforces regional governance norms. c) Governments should treat public-sector AI pilots as a deliberate source of regional learning, with findings shared across CARICOM rather than retained nationally, given the limited capacity any single member state has to evaluate outcomes alone. d) Leverage public-private partnerships financed through development finance institutions. Given SIDS' constrained fiscal space and middle-income ineligibility for concessional finance, Member States should structure public-sector AI deployments as PPPs blended with DFI financing using public procurement as the proving ground for Caribbean AI governance standards. ## Pillar 6: Natural Disaster & Climate Resilience WHAT TO D O Recommendation 6: Prioritize AI-enabled early-warning and resilience applications as a flagship, co-benefit-generating regional investment. a) Regional disaster-management institutions, led by CDEMA, should evaluate the feasibility of an AI-enabled multi-hazard early-warning capability for the Caribbean, drawing on comparable Pacific SIDS models, rather than each member state pursuing separate national systems. b) Any shared digital infrastructure built under Pillar 1 should explicitly incorporate disaster resilience requirements (redundancy, climate-hardening, rapid failover) from the outset, rather than retrofitting them later. c) Given that agriculture represents a comparatively small share of regional GDP but a disproportionately large share of regional employment, governments should evaluate AI enabled agricultural advisory tools as a resilience and food-security priority, with reference to comparable yield and resilience gains documented in Kenya and India. ## Pillar 7: Regional Leadership, Trade & Global Interoperability WHAT TO D O Recommendation 7: Establish CARICOM as a coordinated voice in global AI governance. a) CARICOM should designate a coordinated regional position and representation for the Global Dialogue on AI Governance and related UN processes, rather than allowing member states to engage individually or not at all. b) The region should evaluate the case for a CARICOM-wide AI governance instrument building on, rather than duplicating, the Declaración de Santiago commitments already held by six Caribbean states to close the coordination gap identified in c) Regional bodies (the CTU, CROSQ, and others) should pursue interoperability and mutual recognition arrangements with comparable small-state and regional blocs (the OECS, the Pacific Islands Forum, and others) to share the cost of standards development that no single Caribbean state can bear alone.

# A Comparison of Saving Rates: Micro Evidence from Seventeen Latin American and Caribbean Countries Published: 2015-07-01. Report. 5 citations. ## Authors - Néstor Gándelman: h-index 21; 1,353 citations; corresponding author ## Topics - Banking stability, regulation, efficiency - Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis --- # A Comparison of Saving Rates: Micro Evidence from Seventeen Latin American and Caribbean Countries Micro Evidence from Seventeen Latin American and Caribbean Countries Néstor Gandelman Micro Evidence from Seventeen Latin American and Caribbean Countries Néstor Gandelman Gandelman, Néstor. A comparison of saving rates: micro evidence from seventeen Latin American and Caribbean countries / Néstor Gandelman. p. cm. — (IDB Working Paper Series ; 602) Includes bibliographic references. ## 3. Savings accounts—Latin America 4. Savings accounts—Caribbean Area. I. Inter-American Development Bank. Department of Research and Chief Economist. II. Title. III. Series. IDB-WP-602 Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank. This work is licensed under a Creative 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, as provided below. 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. Following a peer review process, and with previous written consent by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a revised version of this work may also be reproduced in any academic journal, including those indexed by the American Economic Association's EconLit, provided that the IDB is credited and that the author(s) receive no income from the publication. Therefore, the restriction to receive income from such publication shall only extend to the publication's author(s). With regard to such restriction, in case of any inconsistency between the Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license and these statements, the latter shall prevail. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. http://www.iadb.org 2015 Using micro data on expenditure and income for 17 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries, this paper presents stylized facts on saving behavior by age, education, income and place of residence. Counterfactual saving rates are computed by imposing the saving behavior, the population distribution or the income distribution of two benchmark economies (the United States and Korea). The results suggest that the difference in national saving rates between LAC and the benchmark economies can mainly be attributed to differences in saving behavior of the population and, to a lesser extent, to differences in the distribution of the population by educational levels. Other demographic or income distribution differences are not quantitatively important as explanations of saving rates. JEL classifications: C81, D12, D14, D91, E21 Keywords: Saving rates, Latin America 1 This paper benefitted from comments from Eduardo Cavallo and Verónica Frisancho and from participants at internal seminars at the Central Bank of Uruguay, the Instituto de Economía of the Universidad de la Repúbica and the IDB-organized workshop “Domestic Savings in Latin America and the Caribbean.” This paper was undertaken as part of a project of the same name. I wish to thank Braulio Britos for his excellent research assistance. I am indebted to Diether Beuermann, Javier Beverinotti, Carlos Gustavo Machicado, Marcelo Pérez, Eduardo Pontual Ribeiro, Rocío Portilla, José David Sierra, Sung Ju Song and Jorge Tovar for their help to gain access to the databases used in this paper. All errors and omissions remain mine exclusive responsibility. Email: gandelman@ort.edu.uy Address: Facultad de Administración y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad ORT Uruguay, Bulevar España 2633, Montevideo 11.300, Uruguay. ## 1. Introduction According to the World Development Indicators, gross national savings in Latin America as a percentage of GDP was 20 percent in 2012. This figure is well below East Asia and Pacific (40 percent) and South Asia (30 percent), but at about the same level as other regions like Europe and Central Asia (17 percent) and Sub-Saharan Africa (17 percent) and above the United States (12 percent). The comparison between these regions suggests that there is not an obvious relationship among national savings, growth and development. This might be due to significant heterogeneity within regions. In particular, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is not a homogeneous entity in many dimensions, including savings rates. In 2012, they were as large as 26 percent in Bolivia and as low as 9 percent in neighboring Paraguay. National savings are themselves aggregates of heterogeneous households’ (or individuals’) personal savings decisions. On theoretical grounds, life-cycle models (Aando and Modigliani, 1963; Modigliani and Brumberg, 1954) imply that individuals’ savings behavior differs by age. Alternatively, the permanent income hypothesis of Friedman (1957) suggests that consumption (and therefore savings) will differ among individuals whose determinants of permanent income are different. Empirically, Carroll, Rhee and Rhee (1994) test for cultural effects on saving behavior in the United States. As will become clear in the methodology section, differences in saving rates among countries can be disaggregated into the following categories: ## 1. Differences in saving decisions between similar individuals living in different countries (e.g., young people being able to spend above their income level in countries where financial restrictions are less binding, differences in adults’ savings due to alternative national social security systems). ## 2. Differences in distribution in the population of the relevant groups (e.g., differences in the proportion of individuals yet to join the workforce, difference in education levels). ## 3. Differences in income share of groups (e.g., countries with income concentrated in individuals with low saving rates). ## 1. Introduction The goal of this paper is to address the importance of these differences, with particular interest in the first cause (differences in behavior among groups of the population). In particular, we are interested in addressing how similar or different savings patterns are by age, income, education level and area of residence (urban vs. rural). To do so, we apply a common methodology to micro data on income and consumption of 17 LAC countries and two benchmark economies (the United States and Korea) and compute individual saving rates for the adult population and household savings rates. It has been repeatedly argued that saving rates in Latin America are low (e.g., Edwards, 1996; Gutiérrez 2007, Reinhardt, 2008; and Pérez-Monteiro, 2012) and this constitutes a constraint on sustained growth. Most studies are based on saving rates constructed from macroeconomic variables. There are two steams in this literature. One is based on individual country studies using time-series estimations (e.g., Bulír and Swiston, 2006, and Gollás, 1999, for Mexico; López Mejia and Ortega, 1998, for Colombia; Paiva and Jahan, 2003, for Brazil; and Casillas, 1993, for Argentina and Mexico). The other stream evaluates Latin American saving rates within a broader sample of countries. Papers in this latter group used a variety of panel data techniques. Edwards (1996) is probably the first in this line of research, followed methodologically by Reinhardt (2008), Pérez Monteiro, Radusweski and Cavalcanti (2012), and Lane and Tornell (1998). Other Latin American researchers have an even wider country focus. The World Bank research project “Saving across the World” (see Loayza, Schmidt-Hebbel and Servén, 2000a, for a review of this project) produced a wide-reaching dataset that permitted testing other issues like the relationship between income inequality and aggregate savings (Schimdt-Hebbel and Servén 2000) and other policy and non-policy factors and savings (Loayza, Schmidt-Hebbel and Servén, 2000b). Gutiérrez (2007) reviews the empirical literature. According to him, there is a positive association of savings with income level and income growth, macroeconomics stability, foreign credit constraints and demographics. The relations of savings with other variables like real interest rate, types of pension systems and financial development is mixed. In the literature there are several papers who aim to set the main stylized facts of savings rates in particular countries (e.g., Butelmann and Gallego, 2001, for Chile; Alegre and Pou, 2008, for Spain; Castañeda, 2001, for Colombia; Demery and Duck, 2006, for the United Kingdom; and Alan, Atalay and Crossley, 2006, for Canada, among others). Poterba (1994), in whose book several case studies appeared, is probably the classic citation for this type of research. Deaton (1992), Browning and Lussardi (1996) and Attanasio (1999) present comprehensive surveys on consumption and saving that stress the importance of looking at micro-behavior to understand national saving differentials. This article was the end product of research conducted under the Inter-American Development Bank’s Latin American and Caribbean Research Network project “Domestic Savings in Latin America and the Caribbean.” This project explored the low level of domestic savings in Latin America and the Caribbean, the poor financial intermediation of that savings, and its inefficient allocation. This paper presents the results of one of the eight research projects that comprised this study. 2 Our paper contributes to the literature on at least two grounds. First, micro data homogenization and application of a common methodology to a large set of countries has rarely been done in this literature (an exception being Kirsanova and Sefton, 2007, who work with data from the United Kingdom, the United States and Italy). We go beyond individual case studies and set the stylized facts for a wide range of LAC countries in a comparative way. The dimensions considered are important for empirical and theoretical reasons. Among others, Butelmann and Gallego (2001) and Dynan, Skinner and Zeldes (2004) report large disparities in saving rates by current income. The latter authors argue that the more meaningful comparison would take lifelong income and proposes a methodology for doing so. 3 Butelmann and Gallego (2001) also report disparities in savings rates by education level. Those with higher education were the only group with a positive median saving rate in Chile. Differences in savings rates by age are predicted by life-cycle 2 http://www.iadb.org/en/research-and-data/project-details,3187.html?id=2113 3 See Gandelman (2015) for an application to LAC countries. model theories and have been reported in several empirical exercises (e.g., Demery and Duck, 2006, for the United Kingdom and Alegre and Pou, 2008, for Spain). Second, are Latin American saving rates low or high? There is not a natural benchmark for comparinge their relative sizes. We perform a series of counterfactual exercises comparing the structure of savings in LAC with that of the United States and Korea and find that, compared to these countries, LAC saving rates are indeed low. The counterfactual exercises allow us to identify the main differences in saving determinants between LAC and these two benchmarks. In choosing the benchmarks, we selected countries with developed financial markets where constraints on saving and on borrowing are likely to be lower than in Latin America. We also wanted to take countries with different cultural traits that could imply different behavior with respect to consumption and savings. Latin America, belonging to the Spanish-Portuguese tradition, has many differences with the Anglo-Saxon background of the United States and Korea’s Asian culture. Finally, according to WDI, Korean gross savings as percentage of GDP are larger than LAC gross savings, which are in turn larger than U.S. gross savings. The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 presents the methodology, and Section 3 the data. The descriptive results on saving rates are reported in Section 4 and the counterfactual exercises in Section 5. Section 6 concludes. ## 2. Methodology ### 2.1. Decomposition National private savings can be decomposed among groups of the population. Various dimensions can be used to decompose saving rates. Aggregate private savings are the sum of savings of all relevant groups in a country. These groups are indexed by i (e.g., age brackets). Y and C stand for total private income and consumption, respectively, while yi and ci represent, respectively, group income and group consumption. ni is the size of group i. Therefore national saving is: i Y C   yi  ci n (1) By some simple algebraic manipulation this expression can be transformed into the following disaggregation of the national private savings rate:                          N n N Y y y y c Y Y C S i i i i i i t (2) where N is total population. The first term within the sum is the ith group savings rate. The second and third term can be seen as how much this group savings rate is weighted for the aggregate. The second term gives larger weight to those groups whose income level is above the average income level. The third term weights the savings rate according to the relative size of the group. Differences in any of these three terms can explain differences in national saving rates. ### 2.2. Counterfactual Saving Rates We compute counterfactual saving rates considering various dimensions (age, education income and place of residence). For ease of exposition we explain them in terms of age brackets, but the same procedure is applied to other disaggregations of the population. We take each LAC country and change one of its characteristics (savings rates, population distribution and income distribution by age bracket) for the characteristic of the benchmark economies. In this way we compute the counterfactual LAC saving rates if it had one characteristic of the United States or Korea. Let the superscript * refer to the benchmark countries (United States or Korea) while the variables without superscript refer to a LAC country. There are three exercises to be performed with respect to each benchmark economy. 1. To what extent are differences in national private saving rates between LAC and United States/Korea due to different saving behavior of the population? We assume that groups by age in LAC countries have the saving behavior of the population in United States/Korea but that the income and demographic distribution remains as in LAC. The counterfactual national saving rate for each LAC country is:                         N n N Y y y y c S i i i i LA i i sav sav * 2. To what extent are differences in national private saving rates between LAC and United States/Korea due to differences in demographic distribution? We assume that the age population distribution of each LAC country is equal to that of USA/Korea but that the group saving behavior and the income distribution remains at the levels of a LAC country. The counterfactual national saving rate for each LAC country is:                           * * *ˆ N n N Y y y y c S i i i i LA i i pop pop (4) 3. To what extent are differences in saving rates between LAC and United States/Korea due to differences in income distribution? We assume that the income distribution by age bracket in LAC is the same as in United States/Korea but that the saving behavior by groups and the age distribution remains the same as that of each LAC country. The counterfactual national saving rate for each LAC country is:                           N n N Y y y y c S i i i i LA i i inc inc * * * *ˆ (5) 2.3 Household vs. Individual Savings It is important to define whether we treat individuals or households as the decision-makers. Ex ante there are pro and cons for both options. First, empirically it is easier to work at the household level since consumption is not reported at the individual level. To compute individual savings rates we need to allocate household consumption among household members using some more or less ad hoc rule. Second, economic theory in general, and life cycle theory in particular, is constructed assuming individual and not household decision makers. Third, there are differences among household members in some of the variables of interest like age and education. Computing household saving rates forces us to classify households’ savings by the characteristics of the household head, which may or may not be demographically representative of his household. In the next sections we will show that some of our results are more reasonable using individual savings rates, but for completeness and robustness analysis we perform our analysis at both the household and individual level. In computing individual saving rates we follow the methodology proposed by Kirsanova and Sefton (2007) to allocate household consumption (and when necessary also income) within individuals. The starting point is the division of household members into three groups: 1. Dependent children: individuals younger than 18; 2. Principal adults: the head of the household and his partner (if any); and 3. Dependent adults: other adults. The consumption level of a newborn baby is assumed to be 30 percent of that of an adult, and this proportion is assumed to increase linearly until age 18, when the person is considered an adult. After allocating consumption in this way, the consumption of dependent children is reallocated equally between the principal adults. For example, consider a household composed of a couple, a newborn baby and one dependent adult. The household consumption level is 100. The preliminary assignment of consumption consists of 0.3 units to the baby, 1 to the father, 1 to the mother and 1 to the other adult. The 0.3 of the baby is later re-allocated to both parents, each ending up with 1.15 units of consumption. The total consumption of 100 is divided between 34.8 (100*1.15/3.3) for each principal adult and 30.3 (100*1/3.3) for the dependent adult. In general, the information on income provided by household surveys is less problematic since the major sources of income (e.g., labor income) are generally well identified at the individual level. When such identification cannot be done (e.g., a housing government subsidy) this income is divided like consumption. ## 3. Data We work with micro data for 17 LAC countries (Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay), the United States and Korea. The databases for Nicaragua present data only at the household level. Countries perform income and expenditure surveys every decade or so as an input in the construction of the Consumer Price Index. Since the objective of the surveys is the construction of an average consumption basket, data on consumption expenditure are very disaggregated. It includes all forms of consumption like food, beverages, t

## How to Raise Household Savings in LAC: ### Constraints and Best Practices #### Verónica Frisancho IDB-TN-962 Department of Research and Chief Economist TECHNICAL NOTE Nº April 2016 ## How to Raise Household Savings in LAC: ### Constraints and Best Practices Verónica Frisancho Inter-American Development Bank April 2016 Cataloging-in-Publication data provided by the Inter-American Development Bank Felipe Herrera Library Frisancho, Verónica. How to raise household savings in LAC: constraints and best practices / Verónica Frisancho. p. cm. — (IDB Technical Note ; 962) Includes bibliographic references. 1. Saving and investment-Latin America. 2. Saving and investment-Psychological aspects-Latin America. 3. Poor-Latin America-Finance, Personal. I. Inter-American Development Bank. Department of Research and Chief Economist. II. Title. III. Series. IDB-TN-962 Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank. This work is licensed under a Creative 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. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. http://www.iadb.org 2016 Abstract * This technical note examines demand-side constraints households in Latin America and the Caribbean face when making saving decisions, particularly households from lower income deciles. This emphasis is important because poverty can impact individuals’ ability to process information, manage their time efficiently, or resist temptation, thus limiting their ability to make sound financial choices, forecast, or plan ahead. The note first reviews the main formal constraints on saving such as transaction costs, regulatory barriers and limited trust in financial systems. The note then considers constraints on saving in general, whether formal or informal, including social pressure, intra-household allocation issues, information and knowledge gaps, and behavioral biases when making financial choices. Reviewing advances in behavioral economics, particular emphasis is placed on how features of individual behavior can impact savings. Alleviating behavioral constraints could yield large welfare gains at relatively low costs. JEL classifications: C93, D13, D14, D87, O17 Keywords: Household saving, Poverty, Behavioral economics, Latin America and the Caribbean * This technical note was originally prepared as Chapter 9 of the Inter-American Development’s 2016 Development in the Americas Report (Cavallo and Serebrisky, 2016). ##### 1. Introduction Much of the development efforts in the last decades have focused on alleviating the credit constraints that poorer households face due to their limited access to formal financial systems. Although microcredit has successfully reached underserved populations all over the developing world, its impact has been positive but quite limited (Duflo, 2015). Moreover, the outreach depth of microfinance institutions (MFIs) has been restricted since their inception. First, their self sustainability goals force MFIs to give in to trade-offs between outreach and profitability. Second, they target micro entrepreneurs with the goal of financing productive investments. As a consequence, MFIs tend to impose rigid contracts which are not compatible with liquidity needs resulting, for example, from the unexpected health and income shocks faced by households. In recent years, financial inclusion efforts have thus recognized the importance of savings as a development tool, especially in settings where financial markets are thin. Among poor households, savings are a means to reduce their exposure to negative shocks, allowing them to manage risks more effectively, step out of poverty, and build a better life. Savings are also important among the better off, since they promote more productive investments and enable households to move away from short-term decision-making. Around the developing world, several governments have fostered the massive introduction and use of simplified saving accounts. 1 These big pushes have been effective in banking, in the most basic definition of the term, the unbanked. However, even when supply side constraints are minimized, demand-side constraints such as social pressure, lack of knowledge and/or information, and behavioral biases may still persist, making it hard for households to reach their saving goals. Any national financial inclusion strategy that intends to go beyond counting the number of accounts opened has to consider the factors that limit household savings. On one hand, formal financial institutions should keep working hard to design saving products that fit households’ 1 One example comes from the Prime Minister’s People’s Wealth Program in India (Pradhan Mantri’s Jan-Dhan Yojana), which planned to open 75 million accounts in its first phase, ending August 2015. A second example in the region comes from Cuenta RUT, a simplified saving account offered by Banco Estado-Chile’s National Bank, which has positioned itself as the main means of payment and deposit account in the country. Many governments in LAC are also paying out conditional cash transfers through basic bank accounts, promoting the bancarization of the poorest segments of the population. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing debate about the unintended effects of social assistance programs on formal savings choices and trust in the formal financial system. In Brazil and Argentina, for example, the funds deposited into the formal account of the beneficiary households are withdrawn whenever the household does not consume the total amount of the transfer during a given time frame. For a discussion on this topic, see Chapter 11 of Cavallo and Serebrisky (2016). demands and that are simple and easy to use. On the other hand, the provision of financial services must take into account the interaction between saving and credit constraints in a given market, and its effects on households’ financial portfolios and their demand for financial services. Though credit and saving are often viewed as opposite behaviors, the empirical evidence shows that households choose to save and borrow simultaneously. Under liquidity constraints, both instruments provide a tool for financing lump-sum expenditures since they both require a regular schedule of deposits and facilitate a single withdrawal at a given point in time. (Afzal et al., 2015) As established in Chapter 2 of Cavallo and Serebrisky (2016), household saving rates in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are low compared to other regions. This paper evaluates some of the difficulties that households in the region encounter when trying to save, in order to analyze the effects of these constraints on their financial portfolios and identify strategies that may boost household saving rates. As Chapter 3 of Cavallo and Serebrisky (2016) provides evidence on the effects of supply-side constraints on private savings, both in terms of geographic proximity and costs and inefficiencies of formal financial systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, this paper will naturally focus on demand-side constraints that households face when making saving decisions. First, it will review the main constraints that agents face on saving formally, including transaction costs as well as trust in financial systems and regulatory barriers. Second, it will focus on constraints on saving in general, either formally or informally, which include social pressure and intra-household allocation issues, information and knowledge gaps, and behavioral biases in making financial choices. In particular, special emphasis will be placed on how special features of individual behavior can impact savings. Rather than presenting a horserace between demand-side constraints in the region, the focus is placed on behavioral constraints since they have not been extensively studied in Latin America and the Caribbean yet and their alleviation could yield large welfare gains at relatively low costs. The paper will thus review important advances in the field of behavioral economics and present new available evidence along these lines by analyzing the role that individual-level traits such as time preferences, lack of self-control, inertia and limited attention have in shaping financial choices under a given decision-making environment. The core of the paper will focus on households from lower income deciles since it is well documented that they face higher levels of exclusion from credit and insurance markets, higher income volatility, and higher levels of vulnerability to unexpected shocks. Thus, the poor also have more pressing needs than richer households to maintain a stock of savings that allows them to deal with (anticipated and/or unanticipated) income and expenditure fluctuations. 2 Poverty can also impact individuals’ ability to process information, manage their time efficiently, or resist temptation (Mullainathan and Shafir, 2014), thus limiting their ability to make sound financial choices, forecast, or plan ahead. ##### 2. Constraints on Saving Several factors can limit households’ saving choices. In what follows we review these constraints distinguishing between those that affect the choice to save formally and those with a more general effect on saving behavior. Table 1 presents a summary of recent selected experimental evidence on interventions that tackle diverse constraints such as transaction costs, lack of trust and regulation, information and knowledge gaps, social pressure and behavioral biases. 2 Chapter 2 of Cavallo and Serebrisky (2016) shows that high-income households in LAC save less than their counterparts in more developed economies. However, they also face credit constraints to a lesser extent and are less vulnerable when exposed to unexpected shocks when compared to poorer households. Table 1. Selected Recent Experimental Studies on Constraints on Saving, by Type of Constraint Constraint Studies Country Target Population Intervention Results Treatment Time to follow-up Take-up Usage (account holders) Transaction Costs Prina (2015) Nepal Female household heads in 19 slums around Pokhara. Formal saving accounts with no fees and high proximity to a branch. 12 months 84% 80% made at least two deposits; on average, 44 deposits and 4 withdrawals. Dupas, Keats, & Robinson (2015) Kenya Rural area in Busia District. Nominal, non-transferable voucher for a free formal savings account. 28 months 69% 15% made at least 5 transactions. Dupas & Robinson (2013a) Kenya Markets vendors and bicycle taxi drivers. Free formal account. 87% After 6 months, 40% never made a deposit. Dupas & Robinson (2013b) Kenya 113 existing ROSCAs in one district. i) safebox, ii) lockbox, iii) health pot, and iv) individual health savings account. 12 months 71%, 66%, 72%, and 97% Average of 6.5 deposits into the individual account. Dupas, Green, Keats, & Robinson (2012) Kenya Female household heads in villages surrounding 3 rural market centers. Free formal account and simplification of the process to open it. 12 months 60% 18% made at least two deposits. Kast, Meier, & Pomeranz (2012) Chile Low-income micro entrepreneurs, members of a microcredit association. i) control (basic account), ii) self-help peer group, iii) high interest rate. 12 months 50%, 51%, and 55% Number of deposits increases 6-fold only in self-help peer group. Lack of Trust and Regulation Chin, Karkoviata, & Wilcox (2010) Mexico-US Mexican migrants in a small U.S. city. Assistance in obtaining a consular card that can be used to open US account. 5 months 9 pp increase in total savings as a share of income. NA Information and Knowledge Gaps Carpena, Cole, Shapiro, & Zia (2015) India Urban poor households. Classroom-based financial education. Additional treatments: pay for performance, financial counseling, and goal setting. 10 months 2.8 (7.5) pp increase in probability to save informally (formally). Goal setting adds 4.7 pp and 6.3 pp to the probability to save informally and formally, respectively. Counselling adds 13.8 pp to probability to save formally. NA Constraint Studies Country Target Population Intervention Results Treatment Time to follow-up Take-up Usage (account holders) Information and Knowledge Gaps Rodriguez & Saavedra (2015) Colombia Youth bank accountholders. i) 12 month financial education messages, ii) 12 monthly savings reminders, iii) 24 four semimonthly reminders 20 months Drexler, Fischer, & Schoar (2014) Dominican Republic Microfinance clients. i) Standard accounting training program and ii) rule-of-thumb program. 12 months 8 pp increase in probability of saving only for ii). NA Bruhn, de Souza Leao, Legovini, Marchetti, & Zia (2013) Brazil High school students. Case study based financial literacy program 14 months 5 pp increase in probability to save and 1.4 pp increase in average percentage of money saved. NA Seshan & Yang (2012) India-Qatar Indian migrants in Qatar. Financial literary workshop. 12 months No average effect on savings; effects emerge in low baseline-saving sample. NA Field, Jayachandran, & Pande (2010) India Female microfinance clients. Business training. 6 months No effect on savings. NA Cole, Sampson, & Zia (2011) Indonesia Unbanked households. Financial education program on bank accounts. 2 months No effect on probability to open account. NA Social pressure and intra household decision making Jakiela & Ozier (2015) Kenya 26 rural, agricultural communities. Randomizes small/large endowment and public/private results from investment in a risk security. NA, choices observed in the lab. Women are more likely to under invest when treatment is public. No effect for men. NA Ashraf (2009) Philippines Former and existing clients of Green Bank and their spouses. Gift certificate granted and choice of splitting it between individual and joint account. Treatments: i) private, ii) public, and iii) negotiation NA, choices observed in the lab. Men and women whose spouses control saving choices are more likely to put money away in i) and commit it to consumption in ii). NA Schaner (2015) Kenya Married couples in rural areas. Offer of individual and joint accounts with minimum balance and two treatments: i) interest rates and ii) extra statement. 6 months 58% opened only a joint account and 26% opened 2 individual accounts. NA Constraint Studies Country Target Population Intervention Results Treatment Time to follow-up Take-up Usage (account holders) Behavioral Biases Behavioral Biases Karlan & Zinman (2014) Phillipines Rural and peri-urban households. Commitment savings account with randomized pricing and individual/joint ownership options: i) normal rate, ii) high rate, iii) high rate conditional on goal achievement and I) individual, II) joint, III) choice between joint and individual. 12 months 23%, interest rates yield no differential effect. 39% ever made additional deposits after the opening deposit. Ashraf, Karlan, & Yin (2006) Phillipines Green Bank clients who have savings accounts. i) Commitment savings account, with option for automatic transfers and labelling and ii) marketing 12 months 28% NA Karlan, McConnell, Mullainathan, & Zinman (forthcoming) Bolivia, Peru, and the Philippines Rural and small urban areas in the Philippines, new commitment account openers in Peru and Bolivia. Reminders on top of commitment account offer. 12 months NA 6% increase in savings and 3 pp raise in probability of reaching goal. Brune, Giné, Goldberg, & Yang (2015) Malawi Farmers who were clients of a bank. i) commitment savings account and ii) ordinary savings account 19% in both cases 22% of deposits into ordinary account followed by withdrawals of the same amount. Source: Author’s compilation. 2.1 Constraints on Saving Formally While it has already been established that the provision of formal financial services is crucial for the efficient intermediation of savings in an economy, transaction costs in accessing and using these services can impose important barriers on households. Ranging from opening fees and minimum balance requirements to transaction and withdrawal fees, the monetary costs that managing a saving account impose may discourage its adoption and use, especially when the yields offered do not compensate these costs. 3 Empirical evidence in other regions shows that the reduction of pecuniary costs can lead to large effects on the adoption of formal saving products. On one hand, subsidies given to reduce the cost of opening and maintaining a bank account yield take-up rates as high as 82 percent in Nepal (Prina, 2015) and between 47 percent and 62 percent in Kenya (Dupas et al., 2013; Dupas and Robinson 2013a). In the Philippines, interventions aimed at reducing these transaction costs also have positive but more modest effects in the adoption of formal saving accounts (Ashraf, Karlan and Yin, 2006). On the other hand, better financial conditions such as higher interest rates have a positive but limited effect on the adoption and usage of formal saving accounts in Chile (Kast, Meier and Pomeranz, 2012) and the Philippines (Karlan and Zinman, 2014). Even when the marginal yields introduced are large and subsidized, take-up rates often respond little to these offers. In recent years, there have been important regulatory advances in the region that have tried to promote the provision of basic or simplified saving accounts that minimize initial access barriers. These accounts attempt to minimize the transaction costs related to opening an account by reducing the load of paperwork required, authorizing their activation through non-traditional channels such as cellphones or bank agents, or relaxing minimum balance requirements, for example. Nevertheless, the region still faces challenges in the actual provision of these accounts (Armijo de Vega et al., 2013): by 2013, Mexico and Colombia each reported only three formal financial institutions offering a product with the characteristics of a simplified account. Other interesting innovations aimed at reducing the transaction costs of opening and using financial services have been introduced in the region. Formal financial institutions have tried to increase their coverage at low costs while reaching underserved geographical areas by 3 See Chapters 3 and 11 of Cavallo and Serebrisky (2016) for an overview of the main factors that drive up bank costs in LAC. promoting the expansion of agent banking and the use of virtual technologies, for example. Nevertheless, regulation has sometimes gotten in the way of financial inclusion efforts of this sort in the region, delaying or limiting their reach at initial stages of their introduction. Although slowly, regulation did adapt effectively in the case of agent banking: starting in 2005, several countries in the region including Brazil, Colombia, and Peru introduced changes to their regulatory frameworks that authorized the use of agent banking. Bolivia and Mexico only introduced these changes i

# Building Economic Solidarity: Caribbean ROSCAs in Jamaica, Guyana, and Haiti Perspectives from social economics. Published: 2017-09-12. Book chapter. 6 citations. ## Abstract Caribbean women create rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) to take care of the need of their communities when commercial banks and formalized financial alternatives fail to do so. Informal banking collectives are important because they are inclusive, locally driven institutions to meet the livelihood needs of people, particularly women. In this chapter, it shows the various ways that the Black women participate in the social economy through self-managed groups, called ROSCAs. This chapter examines five country cases in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Guyana, and Haiti to show how ROSCAs not only build savings, community relations but also enable people to access large lump sums of cash to invest in their businesses. The Banker ladies are upholding ancient African traditions of collectivity to increase savings and to allow for lending opportunities. ## Authors - Caroline Shenaz Hossein (York University): h-index 12; 426 citations; corresponding author ## Topics - Microfinance and Financial Inclusion - Caribbean history, culture, and politics - Urban and Rural Development Challenges ## References - Ian Boxill. Pierre, Maurice St. Anatomy of Resistance: Anti-colonialism in Guyana 1823-1966. London: Warwick University, Caribbean Studies, and Macmillan Educaction Ltd., 1999. 1999;48(3):201-203. - Understanding the social economy: a Canadian perspective. Choice Reviews Online. 2010;48(01):48-0347. doi:10.5860/choice.48-0347. - Robert Jr. Fatton. The Roots of Haitian Despotism. Lynne Rienner Publishers eBooks. 2007. doi:10.1515/9781626371590. - Wanda A. Wuttunee. Living Rhythms: Lessons in Aboriginal Economic Resilience and Vision. 2004. - Tony Martin. Marcus Garvey, Hero: A First Biography. 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# Caribbean Women’s Use of Susu, Partner, Sol, and Boxhand as Quiet Resistance Published: 2022-02-16. Book chapter. 1 citation. ## Abstract Abstract Mutual aid and coming together has been a way of life for the African diaspora since enslavement and the legacy of it that continues in everyday life. The Black diaspora, and especially Black women, contend with vile forms of racism and exclusion in business and society, but this is not what defines Blacks in the Americas. This chapter focuses on Caribbean women who organize rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs), which are cooperative banking systems embedded in social relationships. This work draws on J. K. Gibson-Graham’s community economies theory, as well as Caribbean and Black liberation theories, to understand the business exclusion of Black women. The empirical interviews with hundreds of Black Caribbean women in Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Haiti show the purposeful way in which they organize ROSCAs to be considerate of people’s social lives in relation to their business needs. These women, in choosing cooperation, are quietly resisting commercial and individualized forms of banking. In this chapter, the author argues that Caribbean women organize Susu, Sol, Partner, and Boxhand, all names for ROSCAs, use banking cooperatives alongside conventional banks as a way to quietly push against commercial and elitist financial institutions. ## Authors - Caroline Shenaz Hossein: h-index 12; 426 citations; corresponding author ## Topics - Caribbean history, culture, and politics ## References - Robert Jr. Fatton. The Roots of Haitian Despotism. Lynne Rienner Publishers eBooks. 2007. doi:10.1515/9781626371590. - Katherine Gibson. A Postcapitalist Politics. 2006. - Booker T. Washington. 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The Caribbean AI Association's 2026 State of Play: 6 Regional Trends That Will Shape Our Future | Caribbean AI Association 2026 State of Play The Caribbean AI Association's 2026 State of Play: 6 Regional Trends That Will Shape Our Future By Adrian Dunkley, Co-Founder, StarApple AI | May 26, 2026 | Regional Analysis TLDR: The Fast Version The .ai domain has crossed 1 million registrations -- a commercial signal the Caribbean cannot ignore. The CTU published a harmonization report on AI governance, giving the region its first real policy anchor. UNESCO is now actively tracking AI in Caribbean and Latin American education through a dedicated observatory. Physical data centres are coming online in the Caribbean, making digital sovereignty a real possibility rather than a slogan. Caribbean youth are leading grassroots AI adoption -- innovation from below is already happening, with or without government policy. Every year, the Caribbean AI Association pauses to take stock. Not the global headlines -- those are plentiful elsewhere. What we are after is the regional picture: the specific developments, data points, and shifts that matter to the 44 million people living in the Caribbean and its extended diaspora. 2026 has been, by any measure, a significant year. A handful of trends have crystallised from background noise into genuine inflection points. Here are the six that our team believes will shape the region's AI trajectory over the next three to five years. Trend 1: The .ai Domain Crosses 1 Million Registrations Trend 01 .ai Domain Hits 1M+ -- Caribbean Businesses Have a Branding Opportunity Right Now The .ai country-code top-level domain belongs to Anguilla. It always has. What changed in 2025 and 2026 is that the global AI industry discovered it. Registrations passed the 1 million mark in early 2026, and the domain authority that administers the .ai namespace -- the Anguilla Internet Registry -- has reportedly generated tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue as a result. That revenue flows directly to Anguilla's government. The .ai domain surpassed 1 million registrations in early 2026, and .ai registrations generated roughly US$85 million in revenue for Anguilla in 2025 -- nearly half the budget of one of the Caribbean's smallest territories. (Source: Government of Anguilla budget reporting, 2025.) The branding opportunity here extends beyond Anguilla. Any Caribbean business building AI-adjacent products or services has a natural affinity with the .ai namespace, and the signal quality of a .ai domain in 2026 -- credibility, AI relevance, global recognisability -- is high. Caribbean startups, AI service providers, and regional tech brands have a genuine first-mover window before .ai becomes as generic as .com. The deeper story is what Anguilla's .ai windfall represents for small island states and digital sovereign assets. A tiny territory has quietly become a significant beneficiary of the global AI boom, not through building AI systems, but through owning a strategically valuable namespace. The lesson for regional digital policy is obvious: Caribbean nations have digital assets and positions that, when managed well, generate outsized returns. Trend 2: CTU Publishes Its AI Governance Harmonization Report Trend 02 The Caribbean Telecommunications Union Gives the Region Its First AI Governance Anchor The Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), based in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, has been the region's primary ICT policy body for decades. In 2025-2026, the CTU moved AI governance from a side agenda to a central one. Its harmonization report on AI policy frameworks for CARICOM member states represents the first serious attempt to build a regionally coherent approach to AI governance. The report does not pretend that the Caribbean can build its own equivalent of the EU AI Act. It takes a more practical line: identifying the regulatory approaches that are emerging globally (EU, USA, UK, Singapore) and recommending harmonized positions that protect Caribbean interests without creating 15 different, conflicting national frameworks. The CTU serves more than 20 member states across the Caribbean. Its AI governance harmonization work, initiated in 2025, is the region's first formal multi-state effort to coordinate AI policy. (Source: Caribbean Telecommunications Union official communications, 2025-2026.) The practical implications are significant. If even a subset of CARICOM members adopt compatible AI procurement standards, data governance rules, and risk assessment frameworks, Caribbean businesses will be able to scale across borders without navigating 15 different regulatory environments. That is the same logic that made CARICOM's single market valuable for goods and services -- and it applies equally to AI. The CAA has engaged with the CTU process and will continue to do so. Caribbean civil society, the private sector, and especially smaller nations need a seat at this table. The harmonization work will shape regional AI governance for a decade. That is too important to be left only to ICT ministries. Trend 3: UNESCO's Education Observatory Tracks AI in Caribbean Schools Trend 03 UNESCO Now Has Data on AI in Caribbean and Latin American Education -- and What It Shows Is Urgent UNESCO's Regional Education Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago) has expanded its monitoring scope to include AI integration in education systems. This matters because, until recently, Caribbean education officials, parents, and researchers were largely working without regional data. What is actually happening with AI in Caribbean classrooms? Nobody had a reliable regional answer. The observatory is beginning to change that. Early findings from the 2025-2026 monitoring cycle indicate that AI tool adoption among Caribbean secondary students has accelerated significantly -- with generative AI (especially for writing and research assistance) becoming near-universal in urban school populations. The regulatory and pedagogical response from education ministries has been substantially slower than the adoption rate. UNESCO OREALC's monitoring indicates that AI tool adoption by secondary students in the Caribbean has outpaced formal education ministry policy responses in most CARICOM member states as of 2026. (Source: UNESCO Regional Education Observatory, OREALC/UNESCO Santiago, 2025-2026 monitoring cycle.) The gap between student AI adoption and teacher AI readiness is the most acute problem. Caribbean students are using AI tools that their teachers have not been trained on, creating assessment, integrity, and pedagogy challenges that individual schools are managing inconsistently. The CAA's education working group has been documenting this gap and will publish specific recommendations for Caribbean ministries of education in the third quarter of 2026. The UNESCO observatory data also flags a persistent infrastructure barrier: Caribbean students in rural areas and smaller islands face connectivity constraints that limit their access to AI tools that urban peers take for granted. The AI readiness gap within countries is, in some cases, as large as the gap between countries. Trend 4: Caribbean Data Centres Come Online -- Digital Sovereignty Gets Real Trend 04 Physical Infrastructure Is Arriving -- The Caribbean's Data Sovereignty Conversation Has to Get Practical For years, the Caribbean's data sovereignty discussion was largely theoretical. Most Caribbean data was stored in US or European cloud infrastructure, by necessity rather than choice. The physical compute infrastructure for regional data sovereignty simply did not exist at meaningful scale. That is changing. In 2025 and 2026, data centre investments have been announced or have come online in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados. These are not hyperscale facilities comparable to what you find in Northern Virginia or Frankfurt. But they are real, regionally owned or operated infrastructure that gives Caribbean businesses and governments an option they previously lacked. New data centre capacity announced or operational in the Caribbean in 2025-2026 includes facilities in Jamaica (Digicel and JamHost expansions), Trinidad and Tobago (the government's digital transformation agenda), and Barbados (Atlantic partnership facilities). Exact capacities vary by facility and have not been fully disclosed publicly. The policy and commercial implications are significant. Caribbean financial services regulators have long had data residency concerns about offshore cloud storage of customer data. Caribbean governments increasingly want sensitive citizen data hosted within jurisdictional reach. And Caribbean AI developers need compute infrastructure that does not require routing everything through foreign cloud providers. None of this makes the Caribbean independent of global cloud infrastructure in the near term. But it does mean that data sovereignty is no longer a binary choice between "build our own hyperscale cloud" and "accept total dependence on US providers." The middle path -- regional infrastructure, integrated with global providers but owned and governed regionally -- is now available. Trend 5: The Regional AI Readiness Gap -- Only 1-2 Nations Have Formal AI Strategies Trend 05 The Caribbean Is Running AI Without a Map -- Most Nations Have No Formal AI Strategy at All The gap in the middle of all the good news: as of mid-2026, only one or two Caribbean nations have anything approaching a formal, published national AI strategy. Jamaica has made the most progress, with its Digital Jamaica agenda providing a framework that explicitly addresses AI. Barbados has signalled intent through its Smart Barbados initiative. Most other CARICOM member states do not have a formal AI strategy at all. This is not a criticism of Caribbean governments -- the same is true of many middle-income countries globally. AI strategy is genuinely difficult to write, and the template does not translate cleanly from large economies to small island states. But the absence of strategy creates a real problem: AI adoption proceeds without guardrails, procurement happens without standards, and the private sector fills the governance vacuum with whatever serves its commercial interests. As of 2026, Oxford Insights' Government AI Readiness Index continues to rank Latin America and the Caribbean near the bottom of global regions for government AI readiness, with most Caribbean small island states scoring below the global average. Jamaica and Barbados represent the regional leaders, but even they lag significantly behind global AI-ready nations. (Source: Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index, 2024-2025 editions.) The CTU harmonization work described in Trend 2 is the right response at the regional level. But the CAA is also advocating for national-level action. What does a Caribbean AI strategy actually need? Our working position: it needs to address four things -- public-sector AI adoption and procurement; AI in education; AI economic development (which industries, which use cases, what support for Caribbean AI businesses); and AI risk and governance. A ten-page framework that addresses those four areas honestly and with Caribbean specificity is more valuable than a fifty-page document that copies and pastes from documents written for economies ten times the size. Trend 6: Caribbean Youth Are Leading Grassroots AI Adoption Trend 06 Bottom-Up AI Innovation Is Already Happening -- The Question Is Whether Institutions Will Get Ahead of It The most energising trend in our 2026 state of play is also the one that gets the least attention in formal AI policy circles. Caribbean young people -- in their teens and early twenties -- are using AI tools at rates that would surprise many policymakers and educators. They are using them to start businesses, to learn, to create content, to solve problems that institutions have not solved for them. In Jamaica, youth-led AI initiatives including coding clubs, AI-for-business workshops, and social-media-native AI content creators are building a grassroots AI literacy ecosystem that did not exist two years ago. Similar patterns are visible in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Guyana, with smaller but growing communities in St. Lucia and across the OECS. The diaspora connection matters here too: Caribbean youth with family in the UK, US, and Canada have access to AI skill-building resources through diaspora networks that accelerate local adoption. Caribbean youth (ages 15-35) represent the most AI-active demographic in the region. Community-organised AI learning events in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Guyana have collectively reached an estimated 5,000+ participants in 2025-2026, according to CAA community monitoring data. What this trend signals is that the Caribbean's AI future is not waiting for government strategy or formal institutional programs. It is being built right now, by young people who are too impatient to wait. The CAA's role in this is to connect that grassroots energy to resources, networks, and opportunities -- and to ensure that the innovation happening at the community level is visible to the policymakers who need to see it. The risk, if institutions do not engage, is that Caribbean youth-led AI adoption remains informal and under-resourced -- producing individual innovators who eventually leave for better-resourced markets rather than building the regional ecosystem that keeps talent at home. What This Means for the Caribbean AI Association in 2026 Six trends, six signals. Taken together, they describe a Caribbean region that is at a genuine inflection point. The infrastructure is arriving. The regional governance machinery is activating. The youth are already building. The data is starting to flow. What is missing is the connective tissue: the institutions, networks, and shared frameworks that let all of this activity compound rather than fragment. That is the work of the Caribbean AI Association -- and frankly, it has never been more necessary or more possible than it is in 2026. The CAA's focus for the remainder of 2026 is threefold. We will continue our engagement with the CTU governance process. We will publish our AI in Caribbean education framework. And we will launch a Caribbean AI Founders Network specifically designed to connect and resource the young innovators described in Trend 6. If you are a Caribbean AI practitioner, researcher, educator, policymaker, or interested observer, we want to hear from you. The state of play we have described here is not inevitable -- it is the result of choices, and the choices being made in the next twelve to twenty-four months will define the region's AI trajectory for years. Explore the Caribbean AI Network The Caribbean AI Association works closely with country-specific AI communities across the region. Follow the national conversations at these sister sites: AI Jamaica -- Jamaica's dedicated AI community hub AI Guyana -- Guyana's AI ecosystem as the oil economy digitises AI Barbados -- Barbados leading small-nation AI strategy AI St. Lucia -- St. Lucia's AI and digital innovation scene AI Trinidad and Tobago -- T&T's energy sector meets AI transformation Frequently Asked Questions What is the Caribbean AI Association? The Caribbean AI Association (CAA) is the region's primary membership body for AI professionals, researchers, businesses, and policymakers. We advocate for responsible AI development, run educational programs, and connect Caribbean AI practitioners with regional and global networks. Why does the .ai domain matter for Caribbean businesses specifically? The .ai domain is administered by Anguilla, a Caribbean British Overseas Territory. Its surge in registrations creates both a revenue opportunity for Anguilla and a branding opportunity for Caribbean AI businesses that want a domain extension with genuine AI credibility. Caribbean companies have a natural claim to this space that businesses elsewhere do not. Which Caribbean nations currently have formal AI strategies? As of mid-2026, Jamaica and Barbados are the closest to formal AI strategies, within their broader digital transformation frameworks. Most other CARICOM member states have not yet published dedicated national AI strategies. The CTU harmonization process may accelerate this, but national strategy development remains a significant gap. How can I get involved with the Caribbean AI Association? The CAA welcomes members from across the Caribbean and the diaspora. You can join as an individual member, an institutional member, or a corporate partner. Our most active engagement happens through working groups on education, governance, and economic development. Visit caribbeanaiassociation.com/membership to learn more. What is StarApple AI and what is its connection to the CAA? StarApple AI is the Caribbean's first artificial intelligence company, founded by Adrian Dunkley. StarApple AI provides AI strategy, education, and enterprise transformation services across the Caribbean. The company is a founding supporter of the Caribbean AI Association and contributes research, editorial direction, and institutional knowledge to the CAA's work. What should Caribbean governments prioritise in AI policy right now? Based on the six trends identified in this article, the CAA recommends that Caribbean governments focus on: (1) publishing a lightweight national AI strategy, even a ten-page framework is better than nothing; (2) joining the CTU harmonization process; (3) addressing the teacher AI readiness gap in education; and (4) establishing data residency and procurement standards as Caribbean data centre capacity comes online. AD Adrian Dunkley Co-Founder, StarApple AI | Contributing Editor, Caribbean AI Association Adrian Dunkley is the foremost AI authority and practitioner in the Caribbean, and the founder of StarApple AI -- the region's first artificial intelligence company. He writes on Caribbean AI strategy, governance, and economic development. Caribbean AI Network caribbeanai.github.io/aijamaica -- AI Jamaica caribbeanai.github.io/aiguyana -- AI Guyana caribbeanai.github.io/aibarbados -- AI Barbados caribbeanai.github.io/stlucia -- AI St. Lucia caribbeanai.github.io/aitrinidadandtobago -- AI Trinidad and Tobago Supported by StarApple AI - the Caribbean's first AI Company

# Enhancing Women Entrepreneurship in the Caribbean: A Policy Brief on Regulatory Reform SSRN Electronic Journal. Published: 2025-01-01. Preprint. 0 citations. ## Authors - Priscilla Bahaw (University of the West): h-index 6; 130 citations; corresponding author - Ayanna Stephens (University of the Commonwealth Caribbean): h-index 5; 78 citations - Abede Jawara Mack (St. Francis Xavier University): h-index 9; 170 citations ## Topics - Microfinance and Financial Inclusion - Gender, Education, and Development Issues - Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences ## References - Syed Zamberi Ahmad, Afida Mastura Muhammad Arif. Strengthening access to finance for women-owned SMEs in developing countries. Equality Diversity and Inclusion An International Journal. 2015;34(7):634-639. doi:10.1108/edi-11-2012-0104. - Dorothe Singer, Asli Demirgüç‐Kunt, Leora F. Klapper. Financial Inclusion and Legal Discrimination against Women: Evidence from Developing Countries. World Bank, Washington, DC eBooks. 2013. doi:10.1596/1813-9450-6416. - Sanjeev Gupta, Hamid Davoodi, Rosa Alonso-Terme. Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality and Poverty?. SSRN Electronic Journal. 1998. doi:10.2139/ssrn.882360. - Saskia Vossenberg. Women Entrepreneurship Promotion in Developing Countries: What explains the gender gap in entrepreneurship and how to close it?. RePEc: Research Papers in Economics. 2013. - Arjun Sengupta. Human Rights and Extreme Poverty. 2010. - Paul Alexander Pounder. Entrepreneurship and gender disparity in the Caribbean. 2015;6. - Paul Holden. Institutions and the Legal Framework for Business Development in the Caribbean. 2009. - Peter Moss, Gillian Whitehouse, Marian Baird, Alexander Michael, Deborah Brennan, Rille-Pfeiffer Christiane, et al. 10th International Review of Leave Policies and Related Research 2014. 2014. - Stephen Drinkwater, Jonathan G. Lashley, Catherine A. Robinson. Barriers to enterprise development in the Caribbean. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. 2018;30(9-10):942-963. doi:10.1080/08985626.2018.1515821. - Albena Pergelova, Tatiana S. Manolova, Ralitsa Simeonova–Ganeva, Desislava Ivanova Yordanova. Democratizing Entrepreneurship? Digital Technologies and the Internationalization of Female-Led SMEs. Journal of Small Business Management. 2018;57(1):14-39. doi:10.1111/jsbm.12494. - Florence Bonnet, Joann Vanek, Martha Chen. Women and men in the informal economy: a statistical brief. 2019. - Jonathan G. Lashley, Katrine Verena Smith. Profiling Caribbean Women Entrepreneurs: Business Environment, Sectoral Constraints and Programming Lessons. 2015;1-88. doi:10.13140/rg.2.1.2414.8242. - Ayanna Frederick, Talia Esnard. Women, Mothers, and Entrepreneurial Engagement in the Caribbean: The Challenge of Context. 2019;109-124. doi:10.1108/978-1-78973-289-420191016. - Lucia Naldi, Massimo Baù, Helene Ahl, Magdalena Markowska. Gender (in)equality within the household and business start-up among mothers. Small Business Economics. 2019;56(2):903-918. doi:10.1007/s11187-019-00275-1. - William Mark Crain, Nicole Verrier Crain. Regulatory Barriers to Women in Business. Business and Public Administration Studies (Washington Institute of China Studies). 2020;14(2):15-21. - Indra Mani, Pashupati Joshi. Women in TVET: Contestation of Agency and Patriarchal Power for Liberation. Journal of Education and Research. 2020;10(1):16-31. doi:10.3126/jer.v10i1.31895. - Sanjeev Gupta, Hamid Davoodi, Rosa Alonso-Terme. Economics of Governance. 2002;3(1):23-45. doi:10.1007/s101010100039. - Talia Esnard. Framing Enterprise and Entrepreneurship for Women in the Caribbean: A Meta-Synthesis. Palgrave studies in equity, diversity, inclusion, and indigenization in business. 2022;41-65. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-04752-7_3.

# Barriers to enterprise development in the Caribbean Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. Published: 2018-09-20. 13 citations. ## Abstract Caribbean economies have suffered from stagnant growth since the 1990s. This can be a feature of small developing economies and is a major concern for policymakers. In this article, we examine establishment-level data to gain a better understanding of the factors that constrain the growth of businesses in the region. In addition to documenting broad differences in obstacles to business within and across the region, we particularly focus on the main obstacles affecting small and medium-sized firms. The econometric analysis highlights three main barriers at a regional level: an inadequately educated workforce; access to finance; and crime, theft and disorder. However, there are variations at the country level and the analysis indicates clusters of countries that experience obstacles to similar degrees. The article concludes with recommendations for alleviating the constraints to enterprise development and in stimulating economic growth. ## Authors - Stephen Drinkwater (University of Roehampton): h-index 24; 2,945 citations; corresponding author - Jonathan G. Lashley (University of the West Indies): h-index 6; 143 citations - Catherine A. Robinson (University of Kent): h-index 20; 1,582 citations ## Topics - Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences - International Business and FDI - Firm Innovation and Growth ## References - Paul Holden, Hunt Howell. Enhancing Access to Finance in the Caribbean. 2009. doi:10.18235/0006787. - Robert B. Potter, David Read Barker, Thomas Klak, Denis Conway. The Contemporary Caribbean. 2015. doi:10.4324/9781315838144. - Selwyn D. Ryan, Lou Anne Barclay. Sharks and Sardines: Blacks in Business in Trinidad and Tobago. Medical Entomology and Zoology. 1992. - Sander Wennekers, Roy Thurik. Linking Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. 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# Are we there yet? The Path Towards Sustained Economic Growth in the Caribbean Inter-American Development Bank eBooks. Published: 2024-10-30. Book. 0 citations. ## Authors - Diether Wolfgang Beuermann (Inter-American Development Bank): h-index 15; 1,087 citations - Sylvia Döhnert: h-index 2; 21 citations - Henry Mooney (Inter-American Development Bank): h-index 5; 224 citations - Ricardo Sierra: h-index 3; 43 citations ## Topics - Global Health and Epidemiology - Gender, Education, and Development Issues - Economic Growth and Productivity --- # Are we there yet? the path toward sustainable ## Abstract This book shatters the research dearth on the Caribbean private sector. It delves into contemporary issues that influence productivity and development through policy-oriented data-driven approaches using the recently conducted IFPG survey. Unveiling the impact of COVID-19, vulnerability to climate change and disasters, weak investment climate, complex policy environment, skills mismatch and education, technology and innovation, and financing obstacles, it offers a roadmap to unleash the region's full economic dynamism. A must-read for policymakers and anyone seeking to ignite the Caribbean private sector's full potential. This book provides timely and insightful economic and policy analyses of productivity in the Caribbean. The authors are world-leading scholars on the topic. They examine the investment climate in the Caribbean, innovation, employment and productivity, and the impact of COVID-19. Based on the insightful data and analyses, the volume further provides a recommended policy agenda for the Caribbean. I strongly encourage anyone with an interest in the Caribbean and economic and policy frameworks to read this book. -Douglas Cumming v List of Tables Table 2. 1. COVID-19 and the Use of Financial Products in Caribbean Firms (Percent) ## Introduction The Need for a Vibrant Private Sector in the Caribbean ## Diether W. Beuermann The private sector is an indispensable force for sustainable developmentit sparks the innovation, improves the productivity and economic efficiency, and creates the jobs and growth needed to boost shared prosperity. International Finance Corporation (2015) T he Caribbean is a unique region, home to a plethora of languages, traditions, and other elements of heritage that can be traced to the diversity of its people and the richness of its history. This diversity is ubiquitous across the 13 Caribbean nations covered in this book: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. 1 Although income levels differ across Caribbean countries, common features include their relatively low economic growth and high volatility over the long term. Figure 1 .1 shows that during the 1960-2019 period, the Caribbean grew at a yearly average of 1.47 percent. This figure is below Latin America's annual growth rate of 1.94 percent and significantly below the pace of expansion of both middle-income and upper-middle-income countries in the rest of the world, which grew at 3.08 and 3.6 percent, respectively. 2 Moreover, besides being the slowest growing region, the Caribbean also has had a more erratic growth trajectory. Figure 1 .1 reveals that the volatility of the Caribbean's long-run growth was 3.16 percent over the period examined. This figure is significantly higher than the growth variability of the other country groups of approximately 2 percent. This low and erratic growth path 1 References in this chapter to the Caribbean refer to these 13 countries. 2 For the analysis of long-term growth, the COVID-19 pandemic period was intentionally excluded. However, this issue is discussed in detail in Chapter 2 of this volume. is behind the relative stagnation of Caribbean living standards compared to more advanced economies. Indeed, while in 1960 the real GDP per capita of advanced countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was roughly double that of the Caribbean, by 2019 it was triple that of the region (Figure 1 .2). Furthermore, structural fiscal shortcomings, coupled with relatively weak fiscal discipline, have resulted in a sizable accumulation of debt in the Caribbean since the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was then exacerbated by the 2008 global financial crisis, and more recently by the COVID-19 pandemic (Beuermann and Schwartz 2018; Schwartz and Beuermann 2021) . Thus, Caribbean economies can be characterized by low growth, high debtto-GDP ratios, and relative stagnation of living standards. What are the determinants of the Caribbean's relatively weak performance? This key question has been explored by previous literature. While the small size of Caribbean countries both in terms of land mass and population has been cited as a potential determinant, evidence shows that this is not the case. Ruprah, Melgarejo, and Sierra (2014) report that size per se of Caribbean nations does not account for the documented underperformance. The authors instead provide evidence that growth is held back by the high vulnerability to increasing natural disasters and the relatively low productivity of the private sector. Indeed, while a minor contributor to climate change, the Caribbean is one of the most vulnerable regions worldwide to the consequences of it. The region is highly exposed to tropical storms and hurricanes, phenomena that will continue to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change. This not only causes immediate destruction of infrastructure, but also newly documented long-term effects on the labor productivity of persons affected by these adverse shocks during critical stages of life. For example, Beuermann and Pecha (2020) document that tropical storms and hurricanes that strike when a woman is pregnant have negative short-term effects on early childhood development and potential detrimental long-term effects on the child's eventual adult productivity. Focusing on high school academic performance, Spencer, Polachek, and Strobl (2016) find significantly negative effects of hurricanes on standardized science examinations. 3 Pecha (2017) shows that hurricanes increase adult informal employment in Jamaica by 14.5 percent, reducing productivity, limiting tax collection, and reducing contributions to the social security system. Regarding the private sector, there is little doubt that it plays a critical role for development by creating jobs, providing goods and services, and stimulating economic growth. It is the most important source of tax revenue for governments to fund public services and investments in resilient infrastructure. It is also a key driver of innovation that often leads to new products, services, and technologies with the potential to mitigate climate change and improve people's lives. Given the importance of a vibrant private sector, it is critical to promote policies and initiatives that facilitate 3 These are the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations administered in the last year of secondary school by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). See the CXC website (www.cxc.org) for more detail. an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. As highlighted by Loayza (2023) , governments and the private sector need each other to succeed. Without an enabling business environment created by governments, the private sector is like a rusty engine that grumbles and barely moves. As such, the documented challenges in the Caribbean are consistent with a private sector that is far from reaching its full potential. Ruprah and Sierra (2016) showed that the Caribbean private sector underperformed comparable countries across several dimensions, including investment, sales growth, innovative capacity, and productivity. In-depth analyses concluded that the main constraint to growth is a policy environment that fails to promote a dynamic and innovative private sector. The authors identified several areas where policies need improvement, including policies related to customs and trade, access to finance, crime, and the lack of an adequately skilled workforce. Given this recognized unfavorable position of the Caribbean private sector, this book provides fresh evidence on the opportunities and challenges of this key ingredient of the economies in the region. The book primarily relies on the most recent round of enterprise surveys sponsored by the Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility. 4 The Innovation, Firm Performance and Gender Issues in Enterprises in the Caribbean (IFPG) Survey collected firm-level information on a representative sample of formal businesses across the 13 Caribbean nations that are the subject of this study between March and November of 2020. The survey was the third round of Caribbean regional enterprise surveys, following those conducted in 2010 (World Bank Enterprise Surveys) and 2014 (Productivity, Technology, and Innovation Survey). 5 This book exploits this unique and methodically assembled data to explore the status of the critical enabling factors for private sector development in the Caribbean. While the data were being collected for this volume, the world experienced the shockwaves of the COVID-19 crisis. Every region in the world felt the drastic impact of the pandemic both in terms of human loss and economic activity, but the Caribbean was hit particularly hard (Arteaga-Garavito, INTRODUCTION 5 Beuermann, and Giles-Alvarez 2020). Based on key firm-level information collected in the midst of the pandemic, Chapter 2 documents the effects of the crisis on various aspects of firm performance, including firms' management decisions on human resources, financing, investments, production, and operations. The chapter also examines innovation efforts in the wake of the pandemic and their effectiveness. Chapter 3 focuses on the investment climate in which Caribbean firms operate. It starts by documenting that investment levels and capital accumulation do not fall short in the Caribbean. Rather, the relatively low productivity of the average Caribbean firm is found to be an issue. The analysis measures indicators related to the investment climate by exploiting data on firms' applications to obtain services such as electricity, water, telephone, and the Internet. Information is combined on the amount of time it took to obtain such services and whether the firm made informal gifts or payments to get things done. The analysis shows that firms that operate in relatively friendly investment ecosystems are significantly more productive than firms operating in environments less prone to facilitating investments. Chapter 4 focuses on what Ruprah and Sierra (2016) documented as one of the most important barriers for doing business in the Caribbean: the lack of an appropriately educated workforce. It shows that this picture remains largely unchanged, as the labor supply in the Caribbean falls short with respect to the skills demanded by the private sector. The analysis shows that one determinant of this situation is skill-biased emigration, as about 70 percent of the Caribbean population with tertiary education emigrates. Moreover, although the diaspora sends remittances back to the Caribbean, those remittances do not compensate for the public resources invested in education and the lost productivity due to emigration. Overall, the chapter emphasizes the dire need for policies to bridge the gap between the skills demanded by the private sector and the curricula offered by local technical and vocational training institutions. This could tackle the skill mismatch in the labor market by providing students with skills that are in high demand. Innovation has been associated with productivity growth at the firm level because innovative firms tend to use their resources more effectively and adapt or develop new technology that usually increases output per worker (Kim and Loayza 2019) . Chapter 5 provides information on technology use by Caribbean firms such as access to digital payments, digital innovation, and the use of new media. Firms are then classified as innovative, potentially innovative, or non-innovative to assess the main characteristics associated with firm innovation. The chapter also analyzes the main barriers to innovation and the impact of innovating in terms of accessibility to new markets, sales growth, quality improvements, and cost reductions. In addition, the chapter provides evidence on transformation readiness and advanced digital technology use among Caribbean firms. Access to finance has been widely identified as one of the biggest obstacles to private sector development in the Caribbean (Ruprah and Sierra 2016; Schwartz and Beuermann 2021) . Empirical evidence has shown that inadequate access to finance impairs firm productivity and growth (Beck, Levine, and Loayza 2000; Ferrando and Ruggieri 2018; Levine, Loayza, and Beck 2000; Motta 2020) . Chapter 6 provides an overview of both the key macroeconomic issues affecting the development of financial markets across the Caribbean as well as structural factors that have influenced the adequacy and availability of credit to firms and households. This includes a particular focus on smaller enterprises and women-owned and women-led firms that appear most challenged in terms of access to credit. Related findings point to important hurdles, as well as policy reforms and other actions with the potential to drive faster and more inclusive financial development across the region. The volume ends with concluding remarks and some suggestions for policy reform presented in Chapter 7. As evidenced throughout this book, the accumulated evidence on the relevance of an appropriate ecosystem for private sector development unequivocally shows that it plays a catalytic role in boosting shared prosperity. Nonetheless, the ability of a country to enable a business environment that facilitates private sector growth ultimately depends on the country's specific situation and characteristics. It is our hope that the fresh empirical evidence presented in this book will provide substantive material for countries in the Caribbean to embark on a policy reform agenda that favors private sector development, as it is critical to improve living conditions in the region. Spencer, N., S. Polachek, and E. Strobl. 2016. How Do Hurricanes Impact Scholastic Achievement? A Caribbean Perspective. Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards 84(2): 1437-462. T he impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various health, social, and economic outcomes was certain to be pronounced and enduring even as early as October 2020, when the crisis was in full swing and no effective treatment had yet been publicly released. Governments in the Caribbean reacted promptly to contain the spread of COVID-19 and protect their citizens. However, the region had difficulties preventing the spread of the disease because of health infrastructure shortcomings and largely fragmented social protection systems. 1 This chapter provides an overview of the pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean by focusing on key health parameters that have been widely used to assess its effects. It offers useful insights about the short-term impact of the health crisis on different outcomes by summarizing the findings of rigorous studies conducted in the region. After reviewing COVID-19related data at the country level (benchmarking the Caribbean with the rest of the Latin America region), the chapter provides a firm-level analysis of the COVID-19 crisis in the Caribbean exploiting data from the Innovation, Firm Performance, and Gender (IFPG) Survey. foot_2 he impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various health, social, and economic outcomes was certain to be pronounced and enduring even as early as October 2020, when the crisis was in full swing and no effective treatment had yet been publicly released. Governments in the Caribbean reacted promptly to contain the spread of COVID-19 and protect their citizens. However, the region had difficulties preventing the spread of the disease because of health infrastructure shortcomings and largely frag mented social protection systems. 1 This chapter provides an overview of the pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean by focusing on key health parameters that have been widely used to assess its effects. It offers useful insights about the short-term impact of the health crisis on different outcomes by summarizing the find ings of rigorous studies conducted in the region. After reviewing COVID-19related data at the country level (benchmarking the Caribbean with the rest of the Latin America region), the chapter provides a firm-level analysis of the COVID-19 crisis in the Caribbean exploiting data from the Innovation, Firm Performance, and Gender (IFPG) Survey. 2 ## Previous Evidence on the Impact of COVID-19 Many studies on the early impact of COVID-19 were conducted during the first six months after it was declared a pandemic by the World Health 1 According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Latin American Economic Outlook 2020, nearly 40 percent of all workers in the region did not have access to any form of social assistance or social protection services (OECD 2020). In addition, approximately 8.5 million jobs were projected to be lost due to clo sures of micro and small firms in the region. 2 See Compete Caribbean, https://www.competecaribbean.org/proteqin-ifpg-data sets/. ## One Step Forward, Three Steps Back: Caribbean Firms amid the COVID-19 Pandemic Diether W. Beuermann and Ricardo Sierra 1 According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Latin American Economic Outlook 2020, nearly 40 percent of all workers in the region did not have access to any form of social assistance or social protection services (OECD 2020) . In addition, approximately 8.5 million jobs were projected to be lost due to closures of micro and small firms in the region. Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020 . Apedo-Amah et al. (2020) analyzed a dataset of over 100,000 businesses from 51 countries and generated several stylized facts about the short-term impacts of the pandemic: that collected information on the characteristics of firms and owners, includ ing formality status, layoffs, closures, revenues lost, and expectations about the future of their firms. They found that the pandemic had large negative effects on employment and on expectations about the future. The firms sur veyed were less aware of existing relief programs and, therefore, received less assistance. Bottan, Hoffmann, and Vera-Cossio (2020) studied data from an online household survey conducted in 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries and found large effects: 45 percent of respondents reported that a house hold member lost a job, and 59 percent of those who owned a business reported that they had to close it. 4 These negative effects were larger among households within the lowest income quintile prior to the pandemic, which illustrates how the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities in develop ing countries. Arteaga-Garavito, Beuermann, and Giles-Alvarez (2020) used the same online socioeconomic survey to analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on six Caribbean countries, 5 summarizing their findings on four key issues: (i) household incomes fell and the number of vulnerable households increased rapidly during the first six weeks of the pandemic, (ii) vulnerable households could not cover basic needs, 6 (iii) the Caribbean recorded an unprecedented rate of job losses, and (iv) social assistance programs were proven to be an important mechanism to support Caribbean populations during the crisis. The evidence of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has of course not been limited t

# Saving for a stormy day? The Jamaican Government Savings Bank and the precautionary savings motive Financial History Review. Published: 2024-08-01. 0 citations. ## Authors - Nekeisha Spencer (University of the West Indies): h-index 11; 373 citations; corresponding author - Eric Strobl (University of Birmingham): h-index 42; 7,618 citations; corresponding author ## Topics - Caribbean history, culture, and politics - Housing Market and Economics - Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis --- # S0968565024000143jra 1..30 *University of the West Indies Mona **University of Bern and University of Birmingham The Government Savings Bank of Jamaica (GSB) was created post-emancipation in order to serve the poor as a vehicle for precautionary savings and has been viewed as largely successful in this goal, at least after its restructuring in the late s. We investigate this by examining GSB depositor behaviour after income shocks due to hurricanes. To this end, we combine digitized parish-level GSB account information with a hurricane damage index generated from historical storm tracks. Our results show little evidence of a precautionary savings motive by GSB account holders in that while net account bal ances and deposits drop after hurricanes, withdrawals and the number of accounts closed also fall. Additionally, the net decrease in account holders seems not to be driven by small savers, who are likely to be the poorest. Our findings are thus more in line with the GSB potentially being used to finance non-necessary consumption. Keywords: precautionary savings motive, hurricanes JEL classification: N, Q, E I An important consequence of the expansion of the wage system and the growth of small-scale farmers and artisans in the Jamaican plantation economy after slave eman cipation in  was the stark rise in small monetary profits among the former slaves and freedmen (Callender ). But this also led to a general concern that these finan cial gains were being spent on the purchase of lands or non-necessary goods rather than being saved (BPP ). In response, in  the Jamaican colonial government passed a regulatory framework for establishing privately run savings banks, modelled on the trustee savings banks first created in Scotland to encourage thrift among the poor (Horne ). The first of these in Jamaica was opened just two years later in Nekeisha Spencer, Department of Economics, University of the West Indies Mona, Kingston , Jamaica, email: nekeisha.spencer@uwimona.edu.jm; Eric Strobl (corresponding author), Department of Economics, University of Bern, Hochschulstrasse , Bern , Switzerland; University of Birmingham, Birmingham B TT, United Kingdom, email: eastrobl@gmail.com. Financial History Review, page  of . © The Author(s), . Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/./), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. doi:./S  Kingston, followed by eight others that spread across the island over the next  years. However, a scandal in , when the secretary of one of the banks absconded with a considerable sum and caused widespread panic among account holders, resulted in their replacement by the Government Savings Bank (GSB) in . Centrally oper ated by the colonial government, with main branches located in each of the parishes, the GSB offered government-backed, anonymous accounts for small savers that accrued interest at a uniform rate (Callender ). It persisted in this general form for over a hundred years until  when it was absorbed by the Workers Savings and Loans Bank.  In contrast to many savings banks elsewhere (Fishlow ; Bunbury ; Ó Gráda , ; Célérier and Tak ), the GSB over its long existence was widely perceived as having been rather successful in terms of providing a savings vehicle for a large number and wide array of lower-income individuals (DR –, –; Callender ; Kirton ; Holt ).  Some of the original motivation for creating such banks, both in and outside Jamaica, was that lower income individuals would be using their deposited savings for when they fell on hard economic times and for old age (DR –; Horne ), rather than spending the money on non-necessary purchases.  In colonial Jamaica, this precautionary savings motive was arguably particularly important since as a small open agricultural economy it was highly dependent on a few export crops,  and thus extremely vulner able to global price and environmental shocks. For example, the manager of the GSB noted that the objective of savings ‘cannot be that of profit, but of security, and being in possession of a sum, however small that may be, in the event of pressing necessity’ (DR –, p. ). However, to what extent savings deposited at the GSB served to buffer short-term unanticipated negative income shocks for its account holders is unclear. While there were some cursory observations of such behaviour made by the GSB after specific environmental disasters or depressions in the export crop market,  it was also noted that some savings were likely used for targeted expenditure, such as, for instance, during an international exhibition in Kingston (DR –).  Compared to GSB, the Workers Savings and Loans Bank had a substantially expanded mandate in terms of how it could serve lower-income individuals; see Kirton ().  One should note, however, that these savings banks often differed starkly across countries. For example, Wadhwani () points out that in countries with centralized and nationalized savings-bank systems, these faced fewer competing institutions.  Governments establishing savings banks were, in particular, hoping that individuals through saving their income would be less likely to become a financial drain on the social welfare system in the face of income shocks (Horne ). This was probably less of a motivation at the time in colonial Jamaica as the social welfare system remained relatively undeveloped for a large part of the post emancipation colonial period (Osei ). More specifically, the first centralized poor relief system was implemented in , providing both indoor relief, mostly in terms of serving as an infirmary, and outdoor relief intended only for those destitute that were physically or mentally not able to work.  These were primarily sugar and, starting at the end of the nineteenth century, bananas (Eisner ).  See, for example, DR (–, –, –, –). In this article, we explicitly investigate how the account transactions of the Jamaican GSB responded to negative income shocks and thus may have served as a precaution ary savings mechanism for small savers. An ideal direct way of testing this would be to combine time- varying individual-level account data with information on the indi vidual exposure to negative income shocks and see how the latter affects the former. Given that individual account data is not available for the GSB, we here instead rely on measuring the regional response in account transactions to regional shocks detrimental to income flows. More specifically, we combine parish-level account information with a proxy of parish-level hurricane damages constructed from historical storm tracks covering over  years of the GSB shortly after its incep tion (–). Hurricanes arguably serve as a particularly suited measure of nega tive income shocks in colonial Jamaica since these were largely unanticipated, but still not uncommon shocks to local agricultural production (Huesler and Strobl ), which was the main source of income for most lower-income individuals during the time period examined (Eisner ). In the small existing literature on savings banks, the precautionary role of savings has as of date not yet been directly empirically tested. For example, exploring the occu pation and marital status of depositors at three different English savings banks, Maltby et al. () provide suggestive evidence that account holders may have opened and maintained accounts for reasons other than long-term thrift and prudence. Both Kelly and Ó Gráda () and Ó Gráda and White (), in contrast, examine how finan cial crises resulted in contagion behaviour among depositors for the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank in New York, while Ross () similarly explored this for the Glasgow Savings Bank. In the paper that touches most closely on investigating the precautionary role of savings banks, Alter et al. () combine the complete history of individual accounts of the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society opened in  with census information on the account holders’ sex, age, occupation and household relationship. The authors show that deposits were infrequent and substan tial and that particularly female servants accumulated large savings, interpreting this as evidence for both a targeted expenditure and life-cycle role of savings. However, Alter et al. () note that they are unable to draw any direct conclusions concerning the precautionary motive, but instead argue that this was unlikely because the with drawals upon the closing of accounts was substantially greater than general withdrawals.  Our results show that, as would be expected, after hurricanes the net total balance, deposits, and the net number of account holders at the GSB fell. However, at the same time the number of withdrawals and the number of accounts closed also decreased. Moreover, the fall in account holders is not driven by the very small savers. Furthermore, evidence from a distinction between Indian immigrant and the  Payne () also notes that precautionary saving at the Scottish savings bank was more likely among workers, but is also not able to test this. SAV ING FOR A STORMY DAY?  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565024000143 Published online by Cambridge University Press general population GSB participants, or from rural branches, also does not provide an explanation for these patterns. Rather, the observed behaviour may be more suggest ive of savings at the GSB being perhaps used to finance future non-necessary expenditures. The remainder of the article is organized as follows. In the following section we provide the general historical background of the GSB and the relevant role of hurri canes in colonial Jamaica. Section III describes the construction of our data and the econometric methodology. Results are provided in Section IV. We provide a simple aggregate comparative study to British savings banks in Section V. The final section concludes. I I The first regulatory framework to establish savings banks in post-emancipation Jamaica was passed in , in view of the recognition that ‘certain regulations should be made for the establishment and management of banks for savings in this island, for the safe custody and increase of small savings belonging to the industrious classes of his Majesty’s subjects’ (LoJ[] ). Importantly, these banks were to be run by private trustees and managers rather than by the colonial government and thus can be considered essentially private institutions, although they were required to deposit the monies either with public banks or commissioners of public accounts. The interest rate to be paid on deposits was left to the discretion of the commissioners of each bank, but capped at a maximum of . per cent per annum. Persons were limited to depositing no more than £ per year, and the principal and interest combined were to be no greater than £ at any point in time. The first savings bank was estab lished in  in Kingston and others subsequently opened in the parishes of Manchester, St James, Clarendon, Trelawny, St Davids, St Thomas, St Ann, Hannover and St Mary during the following  years (Callender ; Watts ). By  there were a total of , depositors with a total of amount of £, of deposits in the nine existing private savings banks (Callender ). On  June , it was discovered that the secretary of the Trelawny Savings Bank had committed a number of forgeries amounting to approximately £,, resulting in the bank suspending its operation, and causing widespread panic.  Moreover, the savings bank in St Mary’s closed two years later, reducing the number of operating banks to just seven. In response to these developments, the colonial government under the governorship of John Peter Grant passed Law  of , which enacted the replacement of the seven existing private savings bank with a government-run savings bank, with the specific purpose ‘to give every depositor … the direct security  The Trelawny Savings Bank was at the time the third largest of the savings banks and located in one of the major sugar-producing parishes (Watts ). of the government in this island for the due re-payment of all moneys so deposited …’ (LoJ[] ).  Apart from explicitly guaranteeing the security on the deposits and interest pay ments, the GSB differed in a number of other important characteristics compared to its private predecessors, which offered considerable advantages to depositors.  Firstly, the GSB could no longer disclose the identity of account holders, except to the governor or revenue commissioner, providing anonymity to depositors. Additionally, depositors were furnished with a passbook that allowed them to make deposits or withdrawals at any branch. In terms of the particulars of the accounts, the deposit limits under the GSB were set at a minimum of one shilling  and, similarly to the previous private savings banks, at a maximum of £. Any account below £ or above £ would additionally no longer bear any interest, although an exception was made with the regard to the latter in the ‘case of a public officer depositing a sum of money as security for his good behaviour in office’ (LoJ[] ), and for charitable and friendly societies which were allowed deposits of up to £.  The interest rate to be paid annually on deposits was origin ally set at  per cent. If a depositor wanted to withdraw a sum greater than £ then he or she needed to provide written notice, upon which approval was guaranteed within a week if the amount did not exceed £. One should note that, in contrast to the previous private savings banks, a consider able amount of effort was put into encouraging the lower-income classes to deposit their savings in the GSB, with a view to targeting the agricultural working class (Watts ). For instance, on  August , a circular was sent to all clergy and magistrates of the parishes asking them to outline to the local peasantry the benefits of depositing at the GSB. At the same time, as pointed out by Augier () and Eisner (), increasing the number of deposits also was of immediate interest to  As argued by Watts (), the replacement of the set of private savings banks with a government-operated one was most likely partially facilitated by the dissolution of the Jamaican assem bly in  after the Morant Bay rebellion in , and the consequent transformation of government to crown colony rule, where the governor had considerably more power and there was direct imperial control of the financial system.  All depositors at the original private savings banks were given the opportunity to transfer their existing accounts to the GSB before their closure (Callender ; LoJ[] ).  In , the GSB also established what were known as penny banks as a new department. These were meant for those that could not afford the minimum deposit required under the GSB (Watts ), in particular for children or the very destitute. Ultimately a penny account could be transferred to a regular GSB account once it reached £. Importantly, however, the government took no responsi bility for these penny banks. In practice, these types of savings mechanisms were used mostly by school children (DR –).  One should note that originally, there was nothing in the regulation that prevented an individual or organization from circumventing the maximum limit by opening several accounts, but in , new rules were introduced to avoid such practices (DR ). SAV ING FOR A STORMY DAY?  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565024000143 Published online by Cambridge University Press the local parish governments since the funds were to be used partially to finance infra structure investment throughout the island. Since its inception, a number of changes in terms of the workings of the GSB took place that may have affected depositors’ behaviour. First of all, the interest rate was reduced from the original  to  per cent in , and then to . per cent in . While there appeared to be no drop in deposits for the former change (DR –), after the reduction in  the manager of the GSB at the time noted that this caused several of the large depositors to withdraw their money, but did not appear to have any effect on smaller depositors (DR –). Secondly, there were also a number of innovations in order to facilitate further ease of accessibility to depositors. Shortly after the start of operation, the GSB opened nine sub-branches in addition to the  main branches in order to ease access for those that lived some distance from the latter (DR –).  Over the years, further sub branches were opened and closed, fluctuating between nine and  in total, at least until .  Additionally, starting in , the main branches increased the opening hours from twice weekly from  a.m. to  p.m. to daily at the same time during the week.  In view of the large number of servants and manual labourers in Kingston who received their wages on Saturday nights, the Kingston branch fur thermore introduced auxiliary opening hours from  to p.m. on Saturday nights in . In the same year, the GSB also started allowing individuals to send their deposits via registered post free of charge. Moreover, depositors in the country parishes could withdraw more than the maximum limit by telegraph ‘should circumstances need an immediate withdrawal’ (DR –, p. ). Finally, individuals who had emigrated to work on the construction of the Panama Canal were as of  given the oppor tunity to make deposits to their GSB accounts at the Jamaican consulate in Panama, and a similar arrangement was made for emigrants to Cuba (Watts ). It appears that a number of emigrants took advantage of this opportunity (DR –; Senior ), although emigration may have also caused the closing of some GSB accounts (DR –). Indian immigration to Jamaica as indentured labourers began in  when, after emancipation, there continued to be a high excess demand for cheap labour by plan tation owners. While the number of immigrants from India was substantial in the first few years, this ceased for some time due to disputes in the colony and only resumed , although at a much smaller scale (Kumar and Kumari ). In response to plantation-owner demands that more public funds be diverted to the Indian immigra tion programme in , the colonial government introduced the Immigration  The main branches were located one in each parish, except, given its proximity to Kingston, in St Andrew, where a main branch was only opened in .  After , information on the number of sub-branches was no longer reported.  The main opening hours of the sub-branches, however, were less frequent, ranging anywhere from once a week to once a month, where this was determined to suit the availability of the assistant collector (DR ). Finance Law, which established a fund for

# A Comparison of Saving Rates: Microdata Evidence from Seventeen Latin American and Caribbean Countries Economía. Published: 2016-04-01. 6 citations. ## Authors - Néstor Gándelman (Universidad ORT Uruguay): h-index 21; 1,353 citations; corresponding author ## Topics - Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis - Income, Poverty, and Inequality - Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies --- # A Comparison of Saving Rates: Microdata Evidence from Seventeen Latin American and Caribbean Countries ## Abstract Using microdata on expenditure and income for seventeen Latin American and Caribbean countries, this paper presents stylized facts on saving behavior by age, education, income, and place of residence. Counterfactual saving rates are computed by imposing the saving behavior, the population distribution, or the income distribution of two benchmark economies (the United States and Korea). The results suggest that the difference in national saving rates between Latin America and Caribbean and the benchmark economies can mainly be attributed to differences in saving behavior of the population and, to a lesser extent, to differences in the distribution of the population by education levels. Other demographic or income distribution differences are not quantitatively important as explanations of saving rates. regions like Europe and Central Asia (17 percent) and sub-Saharan Africa (17 percent) and above the United States (12 percent). The comparison between these regions suggests that there is not an obvious relationship among national savings, growth, and development. This might be due to significant heterogeneity within regions. In particular, Latin America and the Caribbean is not a homogeneous entity in many dimensions, including saving rates. In 2012, the saving rate was as large as 26 percent in Bolivia and as low as 9 percent in neighboring Paraguay. National savings are themselves aggregates of heterogeneous households' (or individuals') personal savings decisions. On theoretical grounds, life-cycle models imply that individuals' savings behavior differs by age. 1 Alternatively, the permanent income hypothesis suggests that consumption (and therefore savings) will differ among individuals whose determinants of permanent income are different. 2 Empirically, Carroll, Rhee, and Rhee test for cultural effects on saving behavior in the United States. 3 ifferences in saving rates among countries can be disaggregated into the following three categories: differences in saving decisions between similar individuals living in different countries (for example, young people being able to spend above their income level in countries where financial restrictions are less binding or differences in adults' savings due to alternative national social security systems); differences in the population distribution of the relevant groups (for example, differences in the proportion of individuals yet to join the workforce or difference in education levels); and differences in the income share of groups (for example, countries with income concentrated in individuals with low saving rates). The goal of this paper is to address the importance of these differences, with particular interest in the first cause (differences in behavior among population groups). In particular, I am interested in addressing how savings patterns differ by age, income, education level, and area of residence (urban versus rural). To do so, I apply a common methodology to microdata on income and consumption of seventeen Latin American and Caribbean countries and two benchmark economies (the United States and Korea) and compute individual saving rates for the adult population and household saving rates. It has been repeatedly argued that saving rates in Latin America are low, and this constitutes a constraint on sustained growth. 4 Most studies are based on saving rates constructed from macroeconomic variables. There are two streams in this literature. One is based on individual country studies using time-series estimations. 5 The other stream evaluates Latin American saving rates within a broader sample of countries. Papers in this latter group use a variety of panel data techniques. Edwards is probably the first in this line of research, followed methodologically by Reinhardt; Pérez-Monteiro, Radusweski, and Cavalcanti; and Lane and Tornell. 6 Other Latin American researchers have an even wider country focus. The World Bank research project "Saving across the World" produced a wide-reaching data set that permitted testing other issues like the relationship between income inequality and aggregate savings and between other policy and nonpolicy factors and savings. 7 utiérrez reviews the empirical literature and finds a positive association of savings with income level and income growth, macroeconomics stability, foreign credit constraints, and demographics. 8 The relations of savings with other variables like the real interest rate, types of pension systems, and financial development are mixed. The literature includes several papers that aim to identify the main stylized facts of saving rates in particular countries. 9 Poterba's book, which includes several case studies, is probably the classic citation for this type of research. 10 Deaton; Browning and Lusardi; and Attanasio present comprehensive surveys on consumption and saving that stress the importance of looking at microeconomic behavior to understand national saving differentials. 11 his paper contributes to the literature on at least two grounds. First, microdata homogenization and the application of a common methodology to a large set of countries are rare in this literature. 12 I go beyond individual case studies and set out the stylized facts for a wide range of Latin American and Caribbean countries in a comparative way. The dimensions considered are important for empirical and theoretical reasons. For example, Dynan, Skinner, and Zeldes report large disparities in saving rates by current income, arguing that the more meaningful comparison would take lifelong income and proposes a methodology for doing so. 13 Butelmann and Gallego report disparities in saving rates by education level as well as by current income: those with higher education were the only group with a positive median saving rate in Chile. 14 Additionally, differences in saving rates by age are predicted by life cycle models and have been reported in several empirical exercises. 15 econd, there is not a natural benchmark for comparing the relative sizes of saving rates in different countries or regions. I perform a series of counterfactual exercises comparing the structure of savings in Latin America and the Caribbean with that of the United States and Korea. The exercise shows that, relative to these countries, Latin American saving rates are indeed low. The counterfactual exercises point to the main differences in saving determinants between Latin America and the Caribbean and these two benchmarks. In choosing the benchmarks, I selected countries with developed financial markets where constraints on saving and borrowing are likely to be lower than in Latin America. I also wanted to use countries with different cultural traits that could imply different behavior with respect to consumption and savings. Latin America, with its historical ties to Spain and Portugal, has many differences with the Anglo-Saxon background of the United States and Korea's Asian culture. Finally, according to WDI, Korean gross savings as a percentage of GDP are larger than Latin American and Caribbean gross savings, which are in turn larger than U.S. gross savings. The paper proceeds as follows. The next section presents the methodology, followed by a description of the data. The paper then reports the descriptive results on saving rates and the counterfactual exercises. 12. One exception is Kirsanova and Sefton (2007), who work with data from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Italy. 13. Dynan, Skinner, and Zeldes (2004). See Gandelman (2015b) for an application to Latin American and Caribbean countries. 14. Butelmann and Gallego (2001). 15. For the United Kingdom, see Demery and Duck (2006); for Spain, see Alegre Martin and Pou Garcias (2008). ## Decomposition National private savings can be decomposed among population groups along various dimensions. Aggregate private savings are the sum of savings of all relevant groups in a country, which are indexed by i (for example, age brackets). Y and C stand for total private income and consumption, respectively, while y i and c i represent group income and group consumption, respectively, and n i is the size of group i. Therefore national saving is Y C y c n i i i i (1) By some simple algebraic manipulation, this expression can be transformed into the following disaggregation of the national private saving rate: ∑ = -= -                 S Y C Y y c y y Y N n N t i i i i i i where N is the total population. The first term in the summation is the ith group saving rate. The second and third terms can be seen as how much this group saving rate is weighted for the aggregate. The second term gives a larger weight to groups whose income level is above the average income level. The third term weights the saving rate according to the relative demographic size of the group. Differences in any of these three terms can explain differences in national saving rates. ## Counterfactual Saving Rates I compute counterfactual saving rates considering various dimensions (namely, age, education, income, and place of residence). For ease of exposition, I explain the process in terms of age brackets, but the same procedure can be applied to other disaggregations of the population. For each Latin American and Caribbean country, one of its characteristics (saving rates, population distribution, and income distribution by age bracket) is replaced with the corresponding characteristic of the benchmark economies. This yields the counterfactual saving rate if the Latin American country had one characteristic of the United States or Korea. Let the superscript * refer to the benchmark countries (the United States or Korea), while the variables without superscript refer to a given Latin American and Caribbean country. There are three exercises to be performed with respect to each benchmark economy. First, to what extent are differences in national private saving rates between Latin America and the Caribbean and the United States or Korea due to different saving behavior by the population? For this exercise, I assume that age groups in Latin American countries have the saving behavior of the corresponding population in the United States/Korea, but that the income and demographic distribution remains unchanged. The counterfactual national saving rate for each Latin American and Caribbean country is then (3) ˆ. * * * * ∑ = -                 = S y c y y Y N n N sav sav LA i i i i i i Second, to what extent are differences in national private saving rates between Latin America and the Caribbean and the United States or Korea due to differences in the demographic distribution? Here, I assume that the age distribution of each Latin American and Caribbean country is equal to that of the United States/Korea, but that the group saving behavior and the income distribution remain at the actual levels. The counterfactual national saving rate for each Latin American country is (4) ˆ. * * * ∑ = -                   = S y c y y Y N n N pop pop LA i i i i i i Third, to what extent are differences in saving rates between Latin America and the Caribbean and the United States or Korea due to differences in income distribution? I assume that the income distribution by age bracket in Latin America and the Caribbean is the same as in the United States/Korea, but that the group saving behavior and the age distribution remain unchanged. The counterfactual national saving rate for each Latin American and Caribbean country is (5) ˆ* * * . * ∑ = -                   = S y c y y Y N n N inc inc LA i i i i i i ## Household versus Individual Savings It is important to define whether the decisionmakers are individuals or households. Ex ante, there are pro and cons for both options. First, empirically it is easier to work at the household level since consumption is not reported at the individual level. To compute individual saving rates, household consumption needs to be allocated among household members using some more or less ad hoc rule. Second, the life cycle theory is constructed assuming individual, rather than household, decisionmakers. Third, household members differ in some of the variables of interest, such as age and education. Computing household saving rates requires classifying household savings by the characteristics of the household head, which may or may not be demographically representative of the household. The next sections show that some of the paper's results are more reasonable using individual saving rates. For completeness and robustness analysis, I perform the analysis at the both household and individual levels, but present them both only when there is an interesting difference. 16 n computing individual saving rates, I follow the methodology proposed by Kirsanova and Sefton to allocate household consumption (and when necessary income) among individuals. 17 The starting point is the division of household members into three groups: dependent children (individuals under the age of eighteen); principal adults (the head of the household and his or her partner, if any); and dependent adults (other adults). The consumption level of a newborn baby is assumed to be 30 percent of that of an adult, and this proportion is assumed to increase linearly until age eighteen, when the person is considered an adult. After allocating consumption in this way, the consumption of dependent children is reallocated equally between the principal adults. For example, consider a household composed of a couple, a newborn baby and one dependent adult. The household consumption level is 100. The preliminary assignment of consumption consists of 0.3 units to the baby, 1.0 to the father, 1.0 to the mother, and 1.0 to the other adult. The 0.3 of the baby is later reallocated to both parents, such that each has a final consumption 1.15 units of consumption. The total consumption of 100 is divided into 34.8 (100 *1.15/3.3) for each principal adult and 30.3 (100 *1/3.3) for the dependent adult. In general, the information on income provided by household surveys is less problematic since the major sources of income (such as labor income) 16. All tables and figures are available in Gandelman (2015a). 17. Kirsanova and Sefton (2007). are generally well identified at the individual level. When such identification is not possible (for example, a government housing subsidy), this income is divided like consumption. ## Data The data set comprises microdata for seventeen Latin American and Caribbean countries (namely, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay), the United States, and Korea. The databases for Nicaragua present data only at the household level. I therefore present the country's descriptive statistics, but do not include it in the counterfactual exercises at the individual level. Countries perform income and expenditure surveys every decade or so as an input for the construction of the consumer price index. Since the objective of the surveys is the construction of an average consumption basket, data on consumption expenditures are very disaggregated. It includes all forms of consumption like food, beverages, transportation, leisure, education, and health expenditures. Table 1 presents the data sources, most of which are countries' national statistical institutes. The dates, also reported in table 1, range from 2003 to 2012. Ideally, the information from different countries would capture the same moment in time and the same phase of the business cycle. This is not possible, however, when working with a sample of countries as wide as in this paper. Thus, one of the contributions of this paper is, in itself, a limitation. There are some differences in the way data are gathered and reported in the surveys. To the extent possible, I have homogenized the definition of saving rates. Labor income is the main source of income for most individuals. It is reported after tax in all cases except Brazil and Nicaragua, where data are gathered gross of taxes and social security contributions. According to Nicaraguan documentation, taxes and social security contributions are gathered in a separate question, but this information is not reported in the microdata. The results section reports descriptive statistics for Brazil and Nicaragua with the rest of the countries. Brazil is included in the counterfactual exercises, but Nicaragua is not due to the inability to compute individual saving rates for this country. As shown in the results section, there are no noticeable differences that can clearly be attributed to this difference in the computation of income. When there is a differential pattern relative to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, it is explicitly mentioned in the text. All forms of monetary and nonmonetary income are computed. Financial capital gains (for example, increases in asset values due to price changes in capital markets) are not commonly reported in the surveys, so they are not included in current income. In contrast, earned interest and dividends are regularly reported and thus are included in the working definition of current income. The surveys request expenditures over various time frames (yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily). The national statistical institutes of all countries but Mexico and the United States convert these totals into monthly figures; those two countries convert expenditures into quarterly data. Consumption of durable goods is also reported, and a portion is imputed to the current period (month or quarter). In the literature, education and health spending are sometimes considered forms of investment and are deducted from current consumption to construct wider savings definitions. I do not follow this approach, however, and treat all forms of education and health spending as consumption. I make two further imputations to consumption and income. Quantitatively, the most important is the rent value of houses for homeowners, which appear as consumption and income in all cases but Argentina, Barbados, Korea, and the United States, where this information is not available. Home production for consumption is treated in the same way. The inclusion of imputed rent and home production in both consumption and income does not alter savings in absolute terms, but it does affect the saving rate. Survey coverage includes representative samples from both urban and rural settings in most countries. In Bahamas, Barbados, Chile, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, and Korea, the sample is only urban. Table 1 reports the number of individuals and households included in each survey. ## Differences in Savings among Countries Table 2 presents my estimates of national household saving rates based on the income and consumption surveys. For comparison, the table also reports the WDI measure of gross domestic savings over GDP for each country. In many countries, the survey was conducted over two years; in those cases, the table reports the two-year average of the WDI measure. As expected, my estimates are below the national gross domestic savings figures (except for Bolivia, Nicaragua, and the United States), since they only capture savings made by families within a country. The difference between my estimated sav

Agro-Invest Invites Applications for 93 Acres of Farmland at Ebony Park Agro-Park – Jamaica Information Service Skip to content Government of Jamaica --> Search for: Search Button Advertisement --> Photo: Contributed Chief Executive Officer, Agro-Investment Corporation (Agro-Invest), Vivion Scully, addressing the recent official handover of an Irrigation Transmission Force Main Piping System at the Ebony Park Agro Park in Clarendon. The Full Story The Agro-Investment Corporation (Agro-Invest) is inviting farmers and investors to apply for commercial investment opportunities at the Ebony Park Agro-Park in Clarendon. An additional 93 acres of farmland at the park has been put to tender. At Ebony Park, the Government has promoted commercial orchards for both ackee and breadfruit with irrigated land, technical assistance and market linkages. “We are feeding applications right now, so we’ll be hosting some new farmers on the project,” said Chief Executive Officer, Agro-Invest, Vivion Scully. “At full development, this additional 93 acres is projected to generate approximately $850 million in annual production value,” he informed. He was addressing the recent official handover of an Irrigation Transmission Force Main Piping System at the agro-park. Completed at a cost of $114.59 million under the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) Rural Economic Development Initiative II (REDI II) Sub-Project, the scope of works included installation of 1.8 kilometres of force transmission main, upgrades to existing distribution lines, rehabilitation of the pump at Spring Plain, and installation of pump switchgear. It will improve irrigation service across the entire Ebony Park Agro-Park along with the adjoining Spring Plain and Mango agro-parks. “This strengthened irrigation network is going to supply approximately 1,500 acres, specifically 1,474, benefiting approximately 146 farmers and investors in the Clarendon area,” Mr. Scully said. He noted that the strategic investment in irrigation will yield long-term benefits for the country through enhanced agricultural production. “Think about supplying hotels, food manufacturers and export markets with the quality and consistency needed. An investor needs to know where the water will come from, a buyer needs to know where the next delivery will arrive from, and this infrastructure is going to help us to answer both questions with greater confidence. This is exactly how public investment can help to provide investment capital and create more opportunities for farmers and growing our economy,” he pointed out. “They [investors] have committed their resources, and our responsibility is to create the conditions for their investments to succeed,” Mr. Scully added. Agro-Invest is the lead business facilitation agency under the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, with responsibility for driving investment, innovation, and commercialisation in Jamaica's agricultural sector. Mr. Scully is encouraging prospective investors to keep up to date with advertised opportunities. “We always have new land coming to the sector. Apply when the calls are open. Come prepared with a sound business plan and a clear understanding of what your market is going to be,” he said. Last Updated: September 23, 2026 Your Privacy Matters To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions. Privacy Policy Functional Functional Always active The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network. Preferences Preferences The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user. Statistics Statistics The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you. Marketing Marketing The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes Accept All Reject All Manage Preferences Save preferences Manage Preferences {title} {title} {title} Manage consent ×

#### Gandelman, Néstor Working Paper ### A comparison of saving rates: Micro evidence from seventeen Latin American and Caribbean countries IDB Working Paper Series, No. IDB-WP-602 Provided in Cooperation with: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC Suggested Citation: Gandelman, Néstor (2015) : A comparison of saving rates: Micro evidence from seventeen Latin American and Caribbean countries, IDB Working Paper Series, No. IDB-WP-602, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC, https://hdl.handle.net/11319/7136 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/115544 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/legalcode ## A Comparison of Saving Rates: Micro Evidence from Seventeen Latin American and Caribbean Countries Néstor Gandelman ##### IDB WORKING PAPER SERIES Nº IDB-WP-602 July 2015 ##### Department of Research and Chief Economist ##### Inter-American Development Bank July 2015 ## A Comparison of Saving Rates: Micro Evidence from Seventeen Latin American and Caribbean Countries Néstor Gandelman ##### Universidad ORT Uruguay ##### Cataloging-in-Publication data provided by the Inter-American Development Bank Felipe Herrera Library Gandelman, Néstor. A comparison of saving rates: micro evidence from seventeen Latin American and Caribbean countries / Néstor Gandelman. p. cm. — (IDB Working Paper Series ; 602) Includes bibliographic references. 1. Saving and investment—Latin America. 2. Saving and investment—Caribbean Area. 3. Savings accounts—Latin America. 4. Savings accounts—Caribbean Area. I. Inter-American Development Bank. Department of Research and Chief Economist. II. Title. III. Series. IDB-WP-602 Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank. This work is licensed under a Creative 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, as provided below. 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. 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The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. http://www.iadb.org 2015 ##### Abstract Using micro data on expenditure and income for 17 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries, this paper presents stylized facts on saving behavior by age, education, income and place of residence. Counterfactual saving rates are computed by imposing the saving behavior, the population distribution or the income distribution of two benchmark economies (the United States and Korea). The results suggest that the difference in national saving rates between LAC and the benchmark economies can mainly be attributed to differences in saving behavior of the population and, to a lesser extent, to differences in the distribution of the population by educational levels. Other demographic or income distribution differences are not quantitatively important as explanations of saving rates. JEL classifications: C81, D12, D14, D91, E21 Keywords: Saving rates, Latin America 1 This paper benefitted from comments from Eduardo Cavallo and Verónica Frisancho and from participants at internal seminars at the Central Bank of Uruguay, the Instituto de Economía of the Universidad de la Repúbica and the IDB-organized workshop “Domestic Savings in Latin America and the Caribbean.” This paper was undertaken as part of a project of the same name. I wish to thank Braulio Britos for his excellent research assistance. I am indebted to Diether Beuermann, Javier Beverinotti, Carlos Gustavo Machicado, Marcelo Pérez, Eduardo Pontual Ribeiro, Rocío Portilla, José David Sierra, Sung Ju Song and Jorge Tovar for their help to gain access to the databases used in this paper. All errors and omissions remain mine exclusive responsibility. Email: gandelman@ort.edu.uy Address: Facultad de Administración y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad ORT Uruguay, Bulevar España 2633, Montevideo 11.300, Uruguay. ##### 1. Introduction According to the World Development Indicators, gross national savings in Latin America as a percentage of GDP was 20 percent in 2012. This figure is well below East Asia and Pacific (40 percent) and South Asia (30 percent), but at about the same level as other regions like Europe and Central Asia (17 percent) and Sub-Saharan Africa (17 percent) and above the United States (12 percent). The comparison between these regions suggests that there is not an obvious relationship among national savings, growth and development. This might be due to significant heterogeneity within regions. In particular, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is not a homogeneous entity in many dimensions, including savings rates. In 2012, they were as large as 26 percent in Bolivia and as low as 9 percent in neighboring Paraguay. National savings are themselves aggregates of heterogeneous households’ (or individuals’) personal savings decisions. On theoretical grounds, life-cycle models (Aando and Modigliani, 1963; Modigliani and Brumberg, 1954) imply that individuals’ savings behavior differs by age. Alternatively, the permanent income hypothesis of Friedman (1957) suggests that consumption (and therefore savings) will differ among individuals whose determinants of permanent income are different. Empirically, Carroll, Rhee and Rhee (1994) test for cultural effects on saving behavior in the United States. As will become clear in the methodology section, differences in saving rates among countries can be disaggregated into the following categories: 1. Differences in saving decisions between similar individuals living in different countries (e.g., young people being able to spend above their income level in countries where financial restrictions are less binding, differences in adults’ savings due to alternative national social security systems). 2. Differences in the distribution in the population of the relevant groups (e.g., differences in the proportion of individuals yet to join the workforce, difference in education levels). 3. Differences in the income share of groups (e.g., countries with income concentrated in individuals with low saving rates). The goal of this paper is to address the importance of these differences, with particular interest in the first cause (differences in behavior among groups of the population). In particular, we are interested in addressing how similar or different savings patterns are by age, income, education level and area of residence (urban vs. rural). To do so, we apply a common methodology to micro data on income and consumption of 17 LAC countries and two benchmark economies (the United States and Korea) and compute individual saving rates for the adult population and household savings rates. It has been repeatedly argued that saving rates in Latin America are low (e.g., Edwards, 1996; Gutiérrez 2007, Reinhardt, 2008; and Pérez-Monteiro, 2012) and this constitutes a constraint on sustained growth. Most studies are based on saving rates constructed from macroeconomic variables. There are two steams in this literature. One is based on individual country studies using time-series estimations (e.g., Bulír and Swiston, 2006, and Gollás, 1999, for Mexico; López Mejia and Ortega, 1998, for Colombia; Paiva and Jahan, 2003, for Brazil; and Casillas, 1993, for Argentina and Mexico). The other stream evaluates Latin American saving rates within a broader sample of countries. Papers in this latter group used a variety of panel data techniques. Edwards (1996) is probably the first in this line of research, followed methodologically by Reinhardt (2008), Pérez Monteiro, Radusweski and Cavalcanti (2012), and Lane and Tornell (1998). Other Latin American researchers have an even wider country focus. The World Bank research project “Saving across the World” (see Loayza, Schmidt-Hebbel and Servén, 2000a, for a review of this project) produced a wide-reaching dataset that permitted testing other issues like the relationship between income inequality and aggregate savings (Schimdt-Hebbel and Servén 2000) and other policy and non-policy factors and savings (Loayza, Schmidt-Hebbel and Servén, 2000b). Gutiérrez (2007) reviews the empirical literature. According to him, there is a positive association of savings with income level and income growth, macroeconomics stability, foreign credit constraints and demographics. The relations of savings with other variables like real interest rate, types of pension systems and financial development is mixed. In the literature there are several papers who aim to set the main stylized facts of savings rates in particular countries (e.g., Butelmann and Gallego, 2001, for Chile; Alegre and Pou, 2008, for Spain; Castañeda, 2001, for Colombia; Demery and Duck, 2006, for the United Kingdom; and Alan, Atalay and Crossley, 2006, for Canada, among others). Poterba (1994), in whose book several case studies appeared, is probably the classic citation for this type of research. Deaton (1992), Browning and Lussardi (1996) and Attanasio (1999) present comprehensive surveys on consumption and saving that stress the importance of looking at micro-behavior to understand national saving differentials. This article was the end product of research conducted under the Inter-American Development Bank’s Latin American and Caribbean Research Network project “Domestic Savings in Latin America and the Caribbean.” This project explored the low level of domestic savings in Latin America and the Caribbean, the poor financial intermediation of that savings, and its inefficient allocation. This paper presents the results of one of the eight research projects that comprised this study. 2 Our paper contributes to the literature on at least two grounds. First, micro data homogenization and application of a common methodology to a large set of countries has rarely been done in this literature (an exception being Kirsanova and Sefton, 2007, who work with data from the United Kingdom, the United States and Italy). We go beyond individual case studies and set the stylized facts for a wide range of LAC countries in a comparative way. The dimensions considered are important for empirical and theoretical reasons. Among others, Butelmann and Gallego (2001) and Dynan, Skinner and Zeldes (2004) report large disparities in saving rates by current income. The latter authors argue that the more meaningful comparison would take lifelong income and proposes a methodology for doing so. 3 Butelmann and Gallego (2001) also report disparities in savings rates by education level. Those with higher education were the only group with a positive median saving rate in Chile. Differences in savings rates by age are predicted by life-cycle 2 http://www.iadb.org/en/research-and-data/project-details,3187.html?id=2113 3 See Gandelman (2015) for an application to LAC countries. model theories and have been reported in several empirical exercises (e.g., Demery and Duck, 2006, for the United Kingdom and Alegre and Pou, 2008, for Spain). Second, are Latin American saving rates low or high? There is not a natural benchmark for comparinge their relative sizes. We perform a series of counterfactual exercises comparing the structure of savings in LAC with that of the United States and Korea and find that, compared to these countries, LAC saving rates are indeed low. The counterfactual exercises allow us to identify the main differences in saving determinants between LAC and these two benchmarks. In choosing the benchmarks, we selected countries with developed financial markets where constraints on saving and on borrowing are likely to be lower than in Latin America. We also wanted to take countries with different cultural traits that could imply different behavior with respect to consumption and savings. Latin America, belonging to the Spanish-Portuguese tradition, has many differences with the Anglo-Saxon background of the United States and Korea’s Asian culture. Finally, according to WDI, Korean gross savings as percentage of GDP are larger than LAC gross savings, which are in turn larger than U.S. gross savings. The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 presents the methodology, and Section 3 the data. The descriptive results on saving rates are reported in Section 4 and the counterfactual exercises in Section 5. Section 6 concludes. ##### 2. Methodology ##### 2.1 Decomposition National private savings can be decomposed among groups of the population. Various dimensions can be used to decompose saving rates. Aggregate private savings are the sum of savings of all relevant groups in a country. These groups are indexed by i (e.g., age brackets). Y and C stand for total private income and consumption, respectively, while yi and ci represent, respectively, group income and group consumption. ni is the size of group i. Therefore national saving is:   i i Y C   yi  ci n (1) By some simple algebraic manipulation this expression can be transformed into the following disaggregation of the national private savings rate:                          N n N Y y y y c Y Y C S i i i i i i t (2) where N is total population. The first term within the sum is the ith group savings rate. The second and third term can be seen as how much this group savings rate is weighted for the aggregate. The second term gives larger weight to those groups whose income level is above the average income level. The third term weights the savings rate according to the relative size of the group. Differences in any of these three terms can explain differences in national saving rates. ##### 2.2 Counterfactual Saving Rates We compute counterfactual saving rates considering various dimensions (age, education income and place of residence). For ease of exposition we explain them in terms of age brackets, but the same procedure is applied to other disaggregations of the population. We take each LAC country and change one of its characteristics (savings rates, population distribution and income distribution by age bracket) for the characteristic of the benchmark economies. In this way we compute the counterfactual LAC saving rates if it had one characteristic of the United States or Korea. Let the superscript * refer to the benchmark countries (United States or Korea) while the variables without superscript refer to a LAC country. There are three exercises to be performed with respect to each benchmark economy. 1. To what extent are differences in national private saving rates between LAC and United States/Korea due to different saving behavior of the population? We assume that groups by age in LAC countries have the saving behavior of the population in United States/Korea but that the income and demographic distribution remains as in LAC. The counterfactual national saving rate for each LAC country is:                         N n N Y y y y c S i i i i LA i i sav sav * * * *ˆ (3) 2. To what extent are differences in national private saving rates between LAC and United States/Korea due to differences in demographic distribution? We assume that the age population distribution of each LAC country is equal to that of USA/Korea but that the group saving behavior and the income distribution remains at the levels of a LAC country. The counterfactual national saving rate for each LAC country is:                           * * *ˆ N n N Y y y y c S i i i i LA i i pop pop (4) 3. To what extent are differences in saving rates between LAC and United States/Korea due to differences in income distribution? We assume that the income distribution by age bracket in LAC is the same as in United States/Korea but that the saving behavior by groups and the age distribution remains the same as that of each LAC country. The counterfactual national saving rate for each LAC country is:                           N n N Y y y y c S i i i i LA i i inc inc * * * *ˆ (5) 2.3 Household vs. Individual Savings It is important to define whether we treat individuals or households as the decision-makers. Ex ante there are pro and cons for both options. First, empirically it is easier to work at the household level since consumption is not reported at the individual level. To compute individual savings rates we need to allocate household consumption among household members using some more or less ad hoc rule. Second, economic theory in general, and life cycle theory in particular, is constructed assuming individual and not household decision makers. Third, there are differences among household members in some of the variables of interest like age and education. Computing household saving rates forces us to classify households’ savings by the characteristics of the household head, which may or may not be demographically representative of his household. In the next sections we will show that some of our results are more reasonable using individual savings rates, but for completeness and robustness analysis we perform our analysis at both the household and individual level. In computing individual saving rates we follow the methodology proposed by Kirsanova and Sefton (2007) to allocate household consumption (and when necessary also income) within individuals. The starting point is the division of household members into three groups: 1. Dependent children: individu

Caribbean AI Leadership Sentiment Survey What leaders told us about responsibility, risk and readiness June 2026 Introduction Executive summary The Caribbean context Five leadership sentiment signals Three conditions for leadership Five shifts for Caribbean leaders Using this report Methodology Key data summary Glossary CONTENTS 03 04 08 09 15 16 23 26 28 29 INTRODUCTION In trying to navigate AI’s impact ourselves and steer away from global playbooks, we paused to refocus on our region. Not surprisingly, there was limited information available to help truly understand how AI was unfolding regionally. We recently engaged leaders across the region to understand how artificial intelligence is showing up in their organizations. Our objective was not to measure technical maturity or benchmark readiness, but to understand the human side of AI adoption: what does it feel like to lead and navigate your organization as AI becomes part of everyday work? The overwhelming sentiment was not a sense of crisis but a clear and thoughtful reflection of where the Caribbean labor market stands today, and what it must become as AI emerges as foundational. In small labor markets like ours, these implications are deeply personal. Decisions about AI are inseparable from questions of employment, trust, community impact and the need to adopt AI responsibly. How do we use AI to make us better and stronger? How do we continue to teach and mentor young professionals to be critical thinkers? How do we weave AI into our values and the ethos that defines us? This report reflects the challenge ahead, as leaders themselves described it. Drawing directly from their insights and experiences, we outline three conditions leaders must intentionally build, along with five leadership shifts required to create those conditions, grounded firmly in Caribbean realities. Together, these define what we call the Caribbean License to Lead. It is grounded in who we are, the markets we serve and the communities and people entrusted to us. _____________________________________________ Artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally disrupting how value, decisions and work are shaped. Hema Narinesingh Consulting and Caribbean Talent Hub Managing Partner, Ernst & Young Services Limited 21% 21% 16% Financial services 35% Technology and Information and communication technology (ICT) 5% Manufacturing and distribution 15% Non-profit 2% Government and public sector 13% Hospitality 1% Oil and gas 8% Academia and research 1% Other 19% Healthcare 1% 34% C-suite 89% Senior management 8% Middle management/technical 3% Sector Role EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We surveyed 239 leaders across 13 Caribbean locations to understand how they are experiencing AI in their organizations. THE TAKEAWAY AI is already part of how Caribbean leaders and teams are working. The challenge for leaders now is about moving with intention, protecting trust, strengthening capability and anchoring adoption in the realities of the people and communities across the region in which they serve. The Caribbean License to Lead was developed to support leaders in this effort. Profile of survey participants The data points to a structural gap in how leaders are engaging with AI. Technology is moving faster than the systems meant to guide it, and those systems are developing faster than leadership readiness to build and use them. Source: EY Caribbean AI Leadership Sentiment Survey (n=239), EY Caribbean, 2025 AI is already part of daily leadership life in the Caribbean. TRUST CAPABILITY CONFIDENCE Five leadership signals reveal what leaders are seeing and navigating as AI becomes embedded in their work Five leadership shifts outline how leaders can actively shape and guide AI use across their organizations AI is already moving through Caribbean organizations. The task now is to convert individual use and personal responsibility into shared direction, visible accountability and trusted institutional practice. A structural misalignment between rapid AI use, lagging leadership confidence and unclear governance What leaders are experiencing How leaders should respond Enabling conditions THE THREE-SPEED PROBLEM WHAT THE DATA REVEALS CORE INSIGHT Caribbean License to Lead HOW LEADERS RESPOND Five signals Page 09 Five shifts Page 16 Page 15 The Caribbean License to Lead model How AI momentum, leadership signals, enabling conditions and practical shifts connect into one leadership response The findings in this report follow a simple leadership logic. Al is already moving through Caribbean organizations, while confidence, governance and shared practice are developing more slowly. The model below shows how this gap shapes what leaders are experiencing (the five signals), what they need to build (the three conditions) and how they can respond in practice (the five shifts) to earn the Caribbean License to Lead. 1 2 3 4 5 The structural gap leaders must now close AI is now part of everyday work, from drafting and research, to analysis, automation and decision-making. As its use expands, organizations may appear to be progressing, while alignment is still forming beneath the surface. The three-speed problem The survey data shows three different speeds at work: AI adoption is moving fast: 84.5% of leaders report comfort using AI tools at work or in daily life. Leadership confidence is developing more slowly: Fewer than 30% feel prepared to guide that use effectively across key leadership dimensions Governance clarity: Only 26.3% report clarity around how AI is governed and who is accountable. This is the three-speed problem: a gap where inconsistent use, uneven accountability and institutional risk begin to form. Until these three speeds begin to align, organizations may use AI more widely than they can guide it. AI use is advancing faster than formal guidance. Leaders and teams are already using AI in practical ways, while policies, decision rules and accountability arrangements are still forming. Leaders feel responsible, with limited institutional support. Many leaders understand how AI affects jobs, trust, reputation and service quality, but they are often carrying that responsibility without enough shared governance or executive alignment. AI learning is happening unevenly. Some teams and individuals are experimenting and building confidence. Others are waiting for direction, training or safe spaces to practice. Capability is growing, but not yet consistently across the organization. Decision authority shapes adoption speed. In many Caribbean organizations, AI adoption depends on senior authorization. This creates discipline once direction is clear, but it can also slow responsible experimentation while alignment is still forming. AI risks are felt through Caribbean realities. Leaders are viewing AI risk through the realities of small labor markets, close communities, inequality, data protection concerns and public trust. The risks are not distant. They are social, visible and personal. Five signals of the leadership gap The signals that follow show how this gap is being experienced in practice: CIO, Aruba This is a once‑in‑a‑lifetime shift. As leaders in our region, we must move boldly, guiding AI with purpose so it becomes true evolution for our people and region. “ What leaders must now build Taken together, the signals point to three conditions leaders must intentionally build through repeated leadership practice: Make AI use visible. Understand how AI is being used, by whom and with what data. State your boundaries. Set clear expectations for how AI should be used and give people permission to act responsibly. Review it together. Bring AI decisions, risks and lessons into regular leadership forums. Learn across your sector. Share what is working, what is unclear and what needs to be strengthened with other organizations navigating this journey. Align your leadership. Agree on what your organization stands for as AI becomes part of how work is done. Five leadership shifts The five shifts in this report show how leaders begin building those conditions: These shifts turn the report from diagnosis into action. They provide a practical route from scattered adoption to trusted organizational practice. The responsibility of leaders is not simply to adopt AI, but to shape it, anchoring its use in our values, aligning it with our development priorities so that it empowers our people rather than leaving us dependent. Leadership must be intentional, ethical and visionary if AI is to become a tool for transformation rather than disruption. Permanent secretary, Grenada Trust, so people can see where AI is used, how decisions are reviewed and who is accountable TRUST CONFIDENCE CAPABILITY Confidence, so leaders and teams understand what is expected and can act with clear direction Capability, so learning moves across teams, sectors and institutions rather than staying with early adopters 1 2 3 4 5 This moment is not defined by resistance to AI. More than 90% of Caribbean leaders are either open, positive or cautiously hopeful about the technology. The dominant persona* across the region is the “cautious optimist” — leaders who see promise in AI, are mindful of risks and want to move forward responsibly. They do not stand apart from technology. They are actively using it and thinking about how it shapes their organizations. As Al use becomes part of their daily work, leaders increasingly rely on personal judgment in areas where common institutional direction is still forming. The Caribbean’s cautious optimists are ready to lead. What they lack is shared structure, clear guidance and institutional backing to translate that readiness into coordinated action. #### Operating realities that shape leadership choices Tech Champion Casual User Cautious Optimist Passive Bystander AI Skeptic/ Rejector Unsure 20% 19% 53% 20% Caribbean Global 17% 13% 6% 1% 1% 15% 17% 18% Open, positive or cautiously hopeful about AI Caribbean leadership personas reflect self-reported attitudes toward AI THE CARIBBEAN CONTEXT *Personas reflect self-reported attitudes toward AI. Understanding signals A signal is a patterned relationship in the data that emerges when you compare multiple survey questions and notice where two or more dimensions move at different speeds or point in different directions. Signals are diagnostic. They reveal where leadership behavior, perception or alignment is under stress by pointing to observable patterns that require attention. The five signals The survey data reveals five distinct patterns in how Caribbean leaders are experiencing AI. These are consistent, measurable relationships that point to deeper conditions and to what leadership must address. Each signal is presented in three parts: what the data shows, what it means and what it asks of leadership. ## Five leadership sentiment signals 1 2 3 4 5 AI use is advancing faster than formal guidance Leaders feel responsible, with limited institutional support AI learning is happening unevenly Decision authority shapes adoption speed AI risks are felt through Caribbean realities ##### 1 What the data shows What it means Leaders are engaging with AI personally and professionally in pragmatic ways. Their focus is on efficiency, analysis and immediate problem solving. They see the usefulness of the tools and are incorporating them into their work. Yet institutional guidance has not developed at the same pace. What it asks of leadership Leaders must create visible systems that allow them to understand and guide how AI is being used. They cannot expect consistency from their teams without articulating clear institutional intent. SIGNAL 1 ##### AI use is advancing faster than formal guidance 85% of leaders report comfort using AI tools at work or in daily life 26% report clarity around AI governance agree their organization is transparent about AI-driven decisions AI adoption is moving rapidly, while institutional guidance remains limited COO/Operations, Trinidad and Tobago Leaders in the Caribbean have a dual responsibility: to advocate for legislation that protects citizens while enabling innovation, and to guide AI adoption internally through structured policy and strategy so its use remains transparent, equitable and ethical. “ <30% feel prepared to guide AI adoption across their organization ~80% 45% <30% AI use in organizations Leadership confidence in setting clear guidance Organizational policy and strategy seen as inadequate What the data shows 2 SIGNAL 2 ##### Leaders feel responsible, with limited institutional support What it means: Leaders understand that AI will influence employment patterns, service delivery and public trust. More than half feel deeply accountable for guiding that influence responsibly. This sense of stewardship is significant. It reveals that leaders grasp the weight of the decisions they are making and will need to make going forward. At the same time, responsibility is often experienced on an individual level rather than institutional. When governance structures are unclear, leaders interpret risk on their own. Decisions are made case by case. Personal responsibility without shared infrastructure can become heavy. It also creates inconsistency, even when intentions are strong. What it asks of leadership: Leaders must build institutional structures that share and support the responsibility they feel personally. The goal is to create conditions in which good judgment can be applied consistently across the organization so that no single leader carries the full weight of decisions that affect teams, clients and stakeholders. Leaders identified awareness building or executive education as the top barrier to developing AI skills (74.5%) followed closely by inadequate organizational policy or strategy (71.7%). Limited time or space to experiment safely emerged as the third major barrier (66.8%).* *Because respondents could select up to three options, percentages reflect the share of respondents choosing each barrier and, therefore, do not sum to 100%. 52% 42% of leaders feel deeply responsible for how AI is introduced in their organization describe their approach as “figuring it out as we go” Top barriers to developing AI skills Awareness building or executive education Inadequate organizational policy or strategy Limited time or space to experiment safely 74.5% 71.7% 66.8% What the data shows Top confidence-building measures cited: ■ Training or upskilling ■ Safe practice environments ■ Peer examples and case studies Top barriers to building AI skills: ■ Awareness building or executive education ■ Inadequate organizational policy or strategy ■ Limited time or space to experiment safely Experimentation encouraged Decisions come from top leadership What it means When asked what would help them feel more prepared, leaders consistently point to practical, hands-on measures. They want training, safe spaces to experiment and opportunities to learn from peers. SIGNAL 3 ##### AI learning is happening unevenly The appetite for growth is evident. What is less visible are coordinated pathways that allow learning to spread systematically. Capability develops in pockets. Early adopters move forward. Others wait for direction. Without structured sharing, lessons remain localized. Organizations progress, but unevenly. What it asks of leadership Leaders must create mechanisms that allow learning to be systematic and shared, not episodic and siloed. This requires both internal coordination and cross-organizational connection. It requires peer networks. It requires resources dedicated to capability building, not just to operational firefighting. CEO and Managing Director, Jamaica We need to create true learning organizations and encourage lifelong learning, helping employees to adopt AI tools and skills confidently. At the same time, we must protect our intellectual property by using secure, internal AI systems that are trained on our own data rather than exposing sensitive information to external models. “ Experimentation vs. centralized authority 28% 64% 36-point gap What it asks of leadership Leaders must use their central authority to enable rather than constrain. They must state clear direction about AI. But they must also create protected space for teams to experiment within that direction. They must build review processes that capture learning from the edges and feed it back to inform strategy. “ | | | SIGNAL 4 | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | Decision authority shapes adoption speed 4 | | | | | | What the data shows | | | | | | | 64% | of leaders say decisions usually come from top leadership | | | | | | | | | | | 28% | say their organization encourages | | | | | | experimentation | | | | | | | | | | | 28% | describe their organization as cautious | | | | | | or resistant to change | | | | What it means Many Caribbean institutions operate with centralized leadership. Direction from the top carries weight, which can bring clarity, reduce fragmentation and speed up decisions. At the same time, these systems often rely on formal approval before new ideas move forward. AI tools do not follow that pattern. People use them because they are available and practical. This creates tension. New approaches emerge at the edges while authority remains at the center. 13 | Caribbean AI Leadership Sentiment Survey | | | Caribbean leaders should craft national and regional AI strategies aligned with development priorities, building regulatory frameworks that safeguard data, ethics and equity while aligning with Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and global standards. CIO, Trinidad and Tobago SIGNAL 5 ##### AI risks are felt through Caribbean realities What the data shows Top regional risks identified by leaders: ■ Job displacement and inequality ■ Data misuse and privacy violations ■ Social bias and discrimination What it means Leaders are clear-eyed about risk. In small labor markets, workforce shifts are felt quickly through professional networks. Regulatory frameworks are still maturing across jurisdictions. Historical experiences of exclusion heighten sensitivity to fairness and who gets left behind. Risk awareness is not theoretical; it is rooted in lived context. Leaders understand that AI will be part of their organizational future. They are seeking assurance that risk will be managed deliberately rather than reactively. What it asks of leadership Leaders must build governance that takes these risks seriously and addresses them explicitly, not as a compliance exercise but as a reflection of a commitment to the communities and people they serve. This means being transparent about trade-offs and making visible how decisions about AI align with organizational values. It also means acknowledging where there is uncertainty and managing it deliberately. Risks seen vs. concerns raised 40-45% ~70% 20- to 30point gap Risk awareness Confidence raising concerns Leaders widely recognize risk (~70%), but far fewer feel confident raising concerns (40–45%), revealing a 20- to 30-point gap between awareness and the ability to act on that awareness. TRUST Transparency, accountability, ethics CONFIDENCE Leadership, literacy, readiness CAPABILITY Systems, standards, governance, coordination ## Three conditions for leadership Viewed together, the five sentiment signals point to three underlying conditions that Caribbean leaders must actively build. These are not problems to solve but conditions to create through deliberate leadership practice. When Trust is strong: ■ Confidence grows ■ Capability is applied When Confidence is strong: ■ Trust is sustained ■ Capability is developed When Capability is strong: ■ Trust is reinforced ■ Conf

--> PM outlines menu of investment opportunities in Jamaica - Jamaica Observer --> Subscribe Login --> ePaper ePaper --> --> ePaper ePaper --> Home News Latest News Cartoon International News Central North & East Western Environment Health # Business Business Bites Social Love Sports Football Basketball Cricket Horse Racing World Champs Commonwealth Games FIFA World Cup Olympics # Videos Entertainment Music Movies Art & Culture Bookends # Lifestyle Page2 Food Tuesday Style Food Awards JOL Takes Style Out Design Week JA Black Friday # All Woman Home Relationships Features Fashion Fitness Rights Parenting Advice # Obits Classifieds Employment Property Motor Vehicles Place an Ad Obituaries More Games Elections Jobs &#038; Careers Study Centre Jnr Study Centre Letters Columns Advertorial Editorial Supplements Webinars tap Home News Latest News Cartoon International News Central North & East Western Environment Health # Business Business Bites Social Love Sports Football Basketball Cricket Horse Racing World Champs Commonwealth Games FIFA World Cup Olympics # Videos Entertainment Music Movies Art & Culture Bookends # Lifestyle Page2 Food Tuesday Style Food Awards JOL Takes Style Out Design Week JA Black Friday # All Woman Home Relationships Features Fashion Fitness Rights Parenting Advice # Obits Classifieds Employment Property Motor Vehicles Place an Ad Obituaries More Games Elections Jobs &#038; Careers Study Centre Jnr Study Centre Letters Columns Advertorial Editorial Supplements Webinars Home News International News Latest Business Business Bites Cartoon Games Food Awards Health Entertainment Bookends Regional Sports Sports World Cup World Champs Olympics Videos Career & Education Classifieds All Woman Environment Webinars More Football Elections Letters Advertorial Columns Editorial Supplements Epaper Design Week Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness (left) in conversation with CEO of Triple Double and the ELC Family Office Andrew “Avi” Greenbaum (centre) during his visit to Miami for the Caribbean Investment Forum. Listening in is the prime minister’s advisor Alok Jain. News September 17, 2026 PM outlines menu of investment opportunities in Jamaica PRIME Minister Dr Andrew Holness has presented international investors with a broad range of opportunities across energy, water, housing, urban development, ports, airports, logistics, tourism, health care, education, mining, and film as Jamaica prepares for infrastructure development at unprecedented scale. Addressing the Caribbean Investment Forum in Miami on Tuesday, the prime minister said Jamaica’s ambition is to undertake a coordinated transformation of the systems that support national life and economic activity. According to Holness, the programme will include roads, ports, airports, logistics operations, schools, health-care facilities, tourism infrastructure, housing, energy, and water. Holness said Jamaica needs infrastructure that can deliver on its ambition, as he invited investors to look beyond isolated projects and consider the value created when infrastructure is planned and connected around productive economic clusters. “Jamaica has one of the highest energy costs in the region, and we are now looking to reduce that by changing our generation capacity to more efficient generation options, including renewables. We have procurement now for approximately 300 megawatts of solar with battery included,” said Holness. He also highlighted opportunities in pumped hydro storage, saying, “Water is a big area for us, necessary for resilience building and necessary for supporting economic growth.” In housing and urban development, the prime minister said Jamaica has an estimated deficit of approximately 150,000 housing solutions. “We would welcome investor interest, particularly in the affordable and low-income end of the housing market. I think that there is a lucrative business opportunity there for housing,” said Holness. He also pointed to investment opportunities in ports, airports, logistics and transportation, and pointed to Jamaica’s strategic location, at the centre of the Caribbean, near major international trade routes and close to the United States, which the prime minister said gives the country a strong geographic advantage. In the meantime, Holness said tourism remains a major draw for investment, supported by a mature ecosystem and strong global awareness of the Jamaican brand. The prime minister said the country welcomes additional tourism projects as it rebuilds and expands supporting infrastructure. He noted that opportunities are also available in healthcare and education, sectors that are central to quality of life, workforce development, and Jamaica’s long-term competitiveness. In mining, the prime minister pointed to bauxite, rare earth elements, gold, silver, and limestone among the resources open to responsible investment. Holness said Jamaica’s fiscal record provides a strong foundation for partnerships with private capital, and noted that the country intends to leverage public-private partnerships to build infrastructure in a way that does not undermine the fiscal discipline of the past decade. In welcoming international investment, the prime minister said, “Jamaica is safe for you to invest, and Jamaica will yield great returns. 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Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams Plaza Independence Square Port of Spain Telephone: 621 CBTT (2288) / 235 CBTT (2288) Exts: 2816; 2817 or 2818 Email: nflp-info@central-bank.org.tt Website: https://www.central-bank.org.tt/nflp ### Connect with us ## Book your Free Financial Literacy Session ## Services Scan the QR code to complete our Request Form The NFLP offers free services to members of the public. These include, presentations and or booths at public events and group financial literacy sessions covering a wide range of topics such as: Investing Savings & Budgeting Requests may also be sent via email (nflp-info@central-bank.org.tt) to: Manager, External Relations Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams Plaza, Independence Square, Port of Spain | | | Debt | | | Management | Home | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | Management | | | | Ownership | | | | | | | & Insurance | | Risk Retirement Planning Entrepreneurship The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago’s National Financial Literacy Programme (NFLP) was established in 2007. It is committed to empowering citizens with the skills and knowledge needed to make informed financial decisions through its financial literacy initiatives. The NFLP provides free financial literacy resources and tools to members of the public. ## Resources The NFLP’s wide range of digital resources including interactive educational tools, games and resources are available at https://www.central-bank.org.tt/nflp

Why the Diaspora Needs an Investment Property in the Caribbean - Jamaica Homes News # Why the Diaspora Needs an Investment Property in the Caribbean By Jamaica Homes March 12, 2026 Updated: September 7, 2026 No Comments 6 Mins Read A hard truth about time, labour, dignity, and coming home There is a particular kind of tiredness that doesn’t come from one bad day, or one difficult week. It comes from decades of repetition. From years of waking up in darkness, travelling through crowds, breathing recycled air, carrying stress in your chest and shoulders, and telling yourself—quietly, repeatedly—that it will all be worth it in the end. For many in the Caribbean diaspora, especially those living and working in England, this routine is not a phase. It is life. You leave home at six in the morning. It’s still dark. You walk half an hour to the station, or maybe you drive, if you’re lucky. The train is already packed. Another hour standing. Another transfer. Underground platforms humming with impatience. Trains rush in and out because they have to keep moving—too many people, not enough space. The air is thick. In summer it’s suffocating; in winter it’s strangely warm, heavy with breath, germs, bodies pressed too close. You surface again into the cold. Your hands sting. Your back tightens. You rush into work. If you’re fortunate, you have a desk near a window. If not, you sit under artificial light all day, head down, eyes on a screen. Lunch is a blur. You eat quickly or not at all. You work late. Seven o’clock comes. You leave the building and it’s dark again. The same darkness you left behind that morning. By the time you get home—seven, eight, sometimes later—your children may already be asleep. If they’re awake, you say goodnight with guilt hanging in your chest. You eat. You watch something familiar on television, half-present. You iron clothes if you didn’t manage it on the weekend. You try to rest, but your mind is already rehearsing tomorrow. Sundays are the worst—not because of work itself, but because of the knowing. Summer changes nothing. The trains are hotter. The crowds sweatier. The pressure constant. And inside that workplace, there is another struggle people rarely talk about openly. You study. You improve yourself. You take courses at night. You work hard. And sometimes, instead of being rewarded, you are watched with suspicion. Envy creeps in quietly. A colleague with fewer qualifications is promoted. You are asked to train them. You do so professionally. Two years later, they manage you. Then you are sidelined. Demoted. Restructured out. You move on. You start again. Five jobs later. Thirty-five years later. Your body slower. Your blood pressure higher. Your back bent slightly forward—not dramatically, just enough to notice. And the question begins to whisper: What was it all for? Dean Jones, Founder of Jamaica Homes, puts it bluntly: > “The diaspora has been sold a dangerous idea—that if you just work long enough, sacrifice hard enough, endure quietly enough, dignity will be waiting for you at retirement. But dignity doesn’t arrive on its own. You have to build it. And if you don’t, time will collect its debt with interest.” This is not an abstract conversation. This is about people reaching 60 believing they are only just starting to live. It’s about men and women who planned to ‘sort things out later’—only to discover that later is fragile. Health conditions appear quietly: high blood pressure, diabetes, joint pain, eyesight fading, circulation problems. The body, after decades of running at 150 miles per hour, begins to slow down whether you are ready or not. And too often, there is nothing waiting. A small pension stretched thin. A cold house. Heating turned down because it costs too much. Loneliness thick in the evenings. A life spent serving systems that never intended to care for you once you were no longer productive. This is why the diaspora must think differently. Earlier. Braver. Smarter. This is why investment property in the Caribbean—particularly in Jamaica—is not about luxury, nostalgia, or fantasy. It is about control. > “An investment property back home is not an escape plan,” Dean Jones writes. “It’s a grounding plan. It’s the difference between ageing with options and ageing with fear. Property is not just an asset—it’s leverage over your future.” The Caribbean offers something the diaspora often forgets it deserves: space to breathe. Sunlight. Familiar culture. Community. Food that doesn’t need explaining. A rhythm of life that doesn’t punish ageing. And importantly, property markets that—while evolving—still allow entry for ordinary people who plan early. Owning property is not just about rental income. It is about anchoring yourself somewhere that does not measure your worth by productivity alone. It is about knowing that if the system pushes you out, you are not homeless in spirit. You are not starting from zero at sixty-five. Too many people delay this decision because they believe they must wait until they are ‘ready’. But readiness is often an illusion. > “I have watched people give the strongest years of their lives to countries that will never truly belong to them,” Dean Jones reflects. “Then, at the point where they should be resting, they are scrambling. Property done early is not pressure—it’s protection.” The diaspora works harder than most. Often twice as hard. Navigating race, class, migration, and expectation simultaneously. Yet many are taught to treat investment as something for later, something risky, something indulgent. Meanwhile, time passes quietly, relentlessly. Property in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean can be lived in, rented, passed on, leveraged, or simply held as certainty. It can be modest. It does not need to be beachfront or extravagant. What matters is ownership, not appearance. There is also a deeper psychological truth here. Knowing you have something building quietly in the background changes how you live now. It reduces fear. It restores agency. It allows you to say no more often. To breathe. > “The tragedy isn’t that people work hard,” says Jones. “The tragedy is that they work hard with no long-term ownership. A life without assets is a life where every setback hits harder.” This is not a criticism of sacrifice. It is a call to redirect it. The diaspora cannot afford to wake up at sixty and realise that all they own are memories of overcrowded platforms, office politics, and missed evenings with family. Life is too short—and too demanding—for that outcome to be accepted as normal. Investing early is not about greed. It is about refusing to be discarded quietly by time. It is about choosing warmth over cold. Familiarity over isolation. Stability over uncertainty. It is about ensuring that when your body finally asks you to slow down, your life is ready to support you. And perhaps most importantly, it is about reclaiming the idea that home is not something you postpone until you are exhausted—but something you prepare for while you still have strength. > “Property is one of the few things that keeps working when you can’t,” Dean Jones concludes. “And every member of the diaspora deserves that kind of loyalty in return.” This is not fear-mongering. It is realism. And realism, when faced early, becomes freedom. The question is not whether the diaspora can afford to invest in the Caribbean. The real question is whether it can afford not to. Email Us: admin@jamaica-homes.com

Remittances: Essential Support for Caribbean Economies from Diaspora - CaribbeanFocus Close Menu Lates News Business Entertainments Food Health Immigration Relocation & Expats Lifestyle Real Estate Sports Travel Caribbean Diaspora Environment World News Discount Travel Events Marketplace Products Search for: What's Hot SAINT VINCENT 2025 Nine Morning Festival launched SAINT MARTIN AFTER-SCHOOL ACTIVITIES: A rich and festive program for children during the Easter holidays | FAXINFO UNTIED STATE VIRGIN ISLANDS Bryan Approves Nine Bills and Vetoes Three, Including ‘Deeply Misguided’ Cap on Retirement Pay Subscribe to Updates Get The Latest News, Updates, And Amazing Offers Email Our Products Matouk's Flambeau West Indian and Hot Pepper Sauce... &#36; 19.99 Buffalo Wild Wings Sauce Ultimate Sampler Bundle -... &#36; 34.99 Tunnocks Caramel Wafers (12 Bars Package) &#36; 15.99 Important Pages: Home About Us Contact us Privacy Policy Terms &#038; Conditions Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest YouTube LinkedIn TikTok Threads Breaking News: Cuba's Fuel Crisis: How U.S. Policy Is Shaping Life For 11 Million People The U.S. Moves In: How Venezuela's Oil Could Reshape The Caribbean’s Future WATCH: Conduct Yourselves with Dignity on Election Day, ABEC Chairman Urges Ahead of April 30 Vote &#8211; Antigua News Trinidad: Government denies approving increased air fares to Tobago Government exploring option of bidding to host major international sports meets Dominican Republic economy grows 5.1% in March, highest in 11 months amid global uncertainty Daily News Limited – Newsday – Notice to Creditors 2026 This Just Might Be the Most Unforgettable Place in Puerto Rico Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest LinkedIn Threads YouTube TikTok Travel Sports Store Caribbean Diaspora May 18, 2025 Remittances: Essential Support for Caribbean Economies from Diaspora Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest WhatsApp Copy Link In recent years, remittances have‌ emerged as a critical lifeline ⁢for many Caribbean economies, offering essential‍ support to families ⁣and​ communities across the‍ region. As millions of Caribbean citizens⁣ continue to seek better⁤ opportunities abroad, often ⁣in the United States, Canada, ⁤and Europe, their financial contributions ⁣back home⁣ are ‍significant. In ‌2022 alone, the World Bank reported that remittance flows to⁢ the Caribbean surpassed $4 billion, marking ​an essential source ⁤of income for households often grappling with economic challenges⁣ exacerbated by natural disasters and global crises. This ⁤article explores⁣ the profound impact ​of remittances on⁤ the ‌Caribbean's socio-economic landscape, highlighting their role in poverty alleviation, education, and entrepreneurship, while also addressing the potential vulnerabilities associated with reliance ⁢on this financial lifeline. ⁤As governments and policymakers navigate the complex dynamics of ⁤globalization, understanding ‌the​ importance ⁢of ⁢diasporic‌ contributions has⁢ never ‌been more critical for fostering ⁣sustainable development in the region. Table of Contents Impact of Remittances on Caribbean Economic Stability Challenges Faced⁣ by Diaspora Sending ⁣Money Back Home ​ Strategies for Enhancing the Efficiency of Remittance Transfers Policy Recommendations for ⁣Strengthening Diaspora Engagement The Way ⁢Forward Impact ​of Remittances on Caribbean Economic Stability Remittances play a pivotal‌ role in shaping the economic landscape ‍of Caribbean nations. With a substantial portion of the population living abroad, ‌these ​financial ⁢transfers from⁤ expatriates provide a lifeline ⁢for families‍ back home, fostering resilience in times of ⁣economic distress. The impact of remittances can be seen‍ across various sectors, stimulating growth and supporting ⁢livelihoods by: Enhancing Household Consumption: Families utilize remittances to cover essential needs such as food, healthcare, and ⁤education. Stimulating Local Economies: Increased spending boosts demand for​ local‍ goods and services,⁢ creating jobs and fostering entrepreneurship. Providing⁤ Financial Security: Regular inflows of cash can help families weather economic downturns, providing ‍a buffer during crises. Moreover, the reliance on remittances has enabled governments⁤ to stabilize ‌their economies through increased consumer ‍spending and remittance-driven investments. In several Caribbean countries, this influx of⁤ foreign currency has helped to maintain their⁢ balance of payments and mitigate deficits. A recent study highlighted the⁢ significance of remittances in maintaining economic stability, ‌showing⁤ that: Country Remittance as % of GDP Key ⁣Sectors​ Benefiting Haiti 30% Construction, Retail, Agriculture Jamaica 16% Tourism, Education, Transport Dominican‌ Republic 10% Real Estate, Services, Agriculture Challenges Faced by Diaspora Sending⁤ Money Back Home ⁣⁣ ⁢ ⁤ One of the ​most significant hurdles faced by the​ diaspora when sending money back​ home is the fluctuating ⁣ currency exchange rates . These ⁢rates can vary‌ widely, impacting the amount of money that recipients ultimately receive. Moreover, varying fees charged by different remittance ‍services can ⁣further⁤ reduce‌ the funds sent to families and communities. Many individuals often find themselves navigating a maze of service providers, each with its ⁢own⁣ set of charges, leading to‌ confusion and potential losses. ​ ⁤ ‍ ‌Another challenge arises from bureaucratic hurdles that can complicate the remittance process. In several Caribbean nations, restrictions and ⁣regulations on incoming funds can delay transfers or impose additional fees. Additionally, the lack of access to ​formal banking services in some areas⁣ can‍ make‌ it difficult for ‌recipients to access ⁤remittances‌ promptly. This⁣ situation ⁢not only ‍affects ​individual ⁢families but can⁣ have ⁣a broader economic impact as cash⁢ flow into local ​economies is stifled. The table below outlines common challenges faced by⁤ senders and recipients of remittances. Challenge Description High ⁣Fees Many remittance ⁢services charge substantial fees, reducing the total amount received. Exchange ⁢Rate Fluctuations Changes ⁣in currency rates can adversely​ impact the value of sent money. Bureaucratic Restrictions Government regulations can delay transfers and⁢ complicate ‌access to funds. Banking Accessibility Limited ​banking ‌services can hinder ‍recipients ‍from receiving their money promptly. Strategies for Enhancing the ⁢Efficiency of Remittance Transfers To optimize⁤ remittance ‌transfers and ensure that funds reach their intended recipients promptly, various strategies can be‍ employed. Leveraging technology is ⁣crucial; digital⁣ platforms⁢ can reduce transaction time‌ and costs compared to traditional banking ‌methods. Encouraging collaboration between financial institutions and technology companies can lead to⁣ the development of user-friendly apps and services that facilitate instant transfers. Additionally, implementing ⁤ blockchain technology ‌can enhance transparency‍ and security, minimizing fraud risks and increasing trust among users. Moreover, improving financial literacy within recipient communities can significantly streamline ⁣the transfer‌ process. Educational initiatives can equip⁤ individuals with ⁣the knowledge needed to navigate various remittance options effectively, fostering informed ‍choices. Establishing agent networks in local areas can also enhance accessibility, providing physical points for recipients ⁢to collect their funds safely. Implementing transparent fee‍ structures is essential ‍too; customers should be made aware of all associated costs⁣ to avoid⁢ unexpected charges. ⁢Below ⁤is a comparative overview of common remittance methods: Method Transfer Time Average Fees Accessibility Bank⁢ Transfer 2-5 ⁤days 3-5% Limited branches Mobile Wallet Instant 1-3% Wide ⁤availability Cash Pickup Services Minutes 5-7% High accessibility Policy Recommendations for⁤ Strengthening ‌Diaspora Engagement To optimize the impact of diaspora ‍remittances on Caribbean economies, several targeted strategies should ⁢be ‍considered. Firstly, developing structured engagement programs is⁣ crucial. These programs could ⁣encompass initiatives​ aimed at fostering ⁣connections between diaspora communities and local stakeholders. ‌This includes: Creating mentorship⁤ opportunities linking experienced diaspora professionals with local entrepreneurs. Establishing collaborative investment funds that​ facilitate joint ventures between local businesses and diaspora⁤ investors. Implementing ⁣ knowledge exchange⁢ programs that leverage the expertise of diaspora members‌ to ‌enhance local skill ‌development. Additionally,⁣ incentivizing remittance‍ flows through favorable regulatory frameworks is essential. Governments⁢ could consider the⁤ following measures: Reducing transaction⁤ fees on‍ remittances to⁣ ensure more funds‌ are available for local ‍investment. Providing tax ⁤breaks or incentives for businesses ⁤that are funded through ⁣remittances. Implementing financial literacy programs for both ‍senders and receivers to maximize the utilization of remittances. Incentive Type Description Transaction Fee Reduction Lower fees for remittances to enhance ​net ⁢inflows. Tax Incentives Encouraging investments via tax relief for⁤ remittance-funded ventures. Financial ⁢Education Training on effective use of remittances‍ in local economies. The⁣ Way Forward remittances play a⁤ vital role in bolstering the economies of Caribbean nations, providing essential support for⁤ families and communities alike. As millions of Caribbean nationals continue to seek better opportunities ‌abroad, their financial contributions remain crucial to sustaining local ‌economies and⁤ fostering socio-economic development. Policymakers in​ the region must recognize the significance of remittances and work ⁢to create ‍an environment that encourages productive investment of these funds, ensuring that the benefits are maximized and ⁤translated into ​long-term growth. By fostering stronger ties between the​ diaspora ⁣and their​ homeland, Caribbean‍ nations ‌can ​harness⁢ the full⁤ potential of​ remittances—transforming⁣ them from‍ mere financial lifelines into powerful tools‌ for ⁤resilience ​and progress. As we look ahead, a collaborative ‌approach between governments, financial institutions, and the diaspora will be key to sustaining this critical source of economic support. Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Copy Link Related Posts The U.S. Moves In: How Venezuela's Oil Could Reshape The Caribbean’s Future The 10 Moments That Shook The Caribbean In 2025 Why The U.S. Is Sending Warships To The Caribbean In 2025: A Deeper Look Leave A Reply Cancel Reply Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. 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Caribbean remittances surge as migrants send $728.6 billion home Advertisement E-Paper | Contact Business News Caribbean Caribbean remittances surge as migrants send $728.6 billion home By CNW Reporter · Tuesday, September 15, 2026 · 5 min read Key Points ( 5 ) Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the fastest growth in remittances of any region over the past decade, as the amount of money migrants sent home to low- and middle-income countries worldwide nearly doubled, according to a new United Nations report. Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean surged 132% between 2016 and 2025, reaching $168.6 billion last year, according to the U.N.’s International Fund for Agricultural Development, or IFAD. Globally, migrants sent $728.6 billion to families in low- and middle-income countries in 2025, a 94% increase over the amount recorded a decade earlier. The growth far outpaced the 28% increase in the number of migrants from those countries over the same period, indicating that migrants are, on average, sending more money home. Some 220 million migrants and members of diaspora communities now support an estimated 1.1 billion relatives, IFAD said. Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the fastest growth in remittances of any region over the past decade, as the amount of money migrants sent home to low- and middle-income countries worldwide nearly doubled, according to a new United Nations report. Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean surged 132% between 2016 and 2025, reaching $168.6 billion last year, according to the U.N.’s International Fund for Agricultural Development, or IFAD. Globally, migrants sent $728.6 billion to families in low- and middle-income countries in 2025, a 94% increase over the amount recorded a decade earlier. The growth far outpaced the 28% increase in the number of migrants from those countries over the same period, indicating that migrants are, on average, sending more money home. Some 220 million migrants and members of diaspora communities now support an estimated 1.1 billion relatives, IFAD said. “This report is about financial flows of extraordinary scale. But more importantly, it is about families,” Pedro de Vasconcellos, manager of IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances, told reporters at U.N. headquarters Monday. Individual transfers are typically between $300 and $400 and are sent nine or 10 times a year, according to de Vasconcellos. The $728.6 billion sent home in 2025 was more than four times the amount of global official development assistance and also exceeded foreign direct investment to low- and middle-income countries. The findings have particular significance for the Caribbean, where remittances remain an important source of income for millions of households and a major source of foreign exchange for several economies. In Jamaica, remittances reached a record US$3.49 billion in 2025, up 3.8% from US$3.36 billion a year earlier, according to Bank of Jamaica data reported by The Gleaner. Remittances were equivalent to about 15.3% of Jamaica&#x27;s gross domestic product in 2024 and exceeded tourism receipts and foreign direct investment. More recent data show that those flows have continued to grow in 2026. Net remittances to Jamaica rose 9.3% year over year to US$292.8 million in June, the strongest monthly increase recorded during the first half of the year. Total inflows for January through June reached US$1.78 billion, 4.2% higher than during the same period in 2025. However, the increase has not been evenly distributed across the island. The Gleaner reported this month that Jamaicans overseas sent US$1.85 billion through remittance companies during the seven months following Hurricane Melissa, from November 2025 through May 2026, an increase of 7.7% over the same period a year earlier. Kingston and St. Andrew accounted for US$79.6 million of the US$132.5 million increase — about 60 cents of every additional dollar sent to Jamaica during the period. Remittance inflows to the capital climbed 11.8%. That contrasted sharply with some of the western parishes hardest hit by Melissa. St. James, Hanover, Trelawny and Westmoreland collectively received US$223.2 million during the seven-month period, an increase of just US$9 million, or 4.2%. St. Elizabeth, where Black River was devastated by the hurricane, recorded an increase of 4.1%, or US$4.4 million. St. James, which includes Montego Bay, received US$82.4 million — unchanged from the amount received during the seven months before the storm. The geographic shift predates Melissa. Between 2021 and 2025, remittances collected in Kingston and St. Andrew increased 15.3%, while inflows to the rest of Jamaica declined 4.8%, according to the parish-level Bank of Jamaica data cited by The Gleaner. The United States remains by far the most important source of remittances for Jamaica and the wider Latin American and Caribbean region. In June, about two-thirds of Jamaica&#x27;s inflows originated in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom at 10.8%, Canada at 9.3% and the Cayman Islands at 6.3%. That dependence also creates vulnerabilities, IFAD warned, as deportations, restrictions on migrant employment or weaker labor demand in the United States could reduce both the number of people sending money and the amount they are able to send. Despite tougher immigration policies in the United States and parts of Europe, IFAD said the effects have not yet translated into an overall decline in remittances. “Figures right now do not show actually a reduction in remittances,” de Vasconcellos said, noting that migrants often continue prioritizing their families&#x27; needs during periods of economic or political uncertainty. Several Central American economies are particularly dependent on the money migrants send home. Remittances were equivalent to 30% of Honduras&#x27; gross domestic product in 2025, 28% in El Salvador and 27% in Nicaragua. A study cited by IFAD also found that 61% of returnees surveyed in Guatemala had previously been the main income earner for their household, illustrating how deportation or other forms of involuntary return can abruptly cut off income for families. While Latin America and the Caribbean experienced the fastest growth, Asia and the Pacific remained the world&#x27;s largest recipient region, receiving $384.9 billion in 2025, or 53% of the global total. Africa received $124.2 billion, an 86% increase over the decade, with Egypt overtaking Nigeria as the continent&#x27;s largest recipient. About three-quarters of remittances are used to meet immediate needs, including food, shelter and utilities. The remaining quarter — more than $180 billion annually — goes toward health care, education, housing, savings and businesses. Nearly $233 billion, or about one-third of all remittances, flowed into rural economies in 2025, where employment opportunities, financial services and public infrastructure are often more limited. IFAD said remittances have also become an important tool for families responding to climate-related disasters and other shocks, helping replace lost income and finance rebuilding. De Vasconcellos cautioned, however, that remittances are private resources intended to support families and “cannot substitute” for government investment, social protection, humanitarian assistance or climate finance. The report also found that while more than half of remittances now begin digitally, just 35% of services measured in 2025 were fully digital from sender to recipient. Digital transfers cost an average of about 4.6% of the amount sent, compared with 7.3% for non-digital services. “Technologies really can help. But it’s not enough,” de Vasconcellos said. IFAD is calling for cheaper and more transparent remittance services, expanded access to financial services and greater opportunities for recipient families to save, obtain insurance and invest their money. 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71 ETHNOLOGY vol. 48, no.1, Winter 2009, pp. 71–84. ETHNOLOGY, c/o Department of Anthropology, The University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA 15260 USA Copyright 2010 by The University of Pittsburgh. All rights reserved. ## CREDIT, IDENTITY, AND RESILIENCE IN THE BAHAMAS AND BARBADOS 1 Brent W. Stoffle National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Trevor Purcell University of South Florida Richard W. Stoffle Kathleen Van Vlack University of Arizona Kendra Arnett Jessica Minnis College of the Bahamas People of the Caribbean have maintained social networks that provide security in the face of human and natural perturbations. Rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) constitute one such system, which probably came to much of the Caribbean with African people and persisted through slavery. As a foundation of creole economic systems throughout the Caribbean, ROSCAs are time-tested dimensions of traditional culture and a source of pride and identity. This analysis of the history and contemporary functions of ROSCAs in Barbados and the Bahamas is based on more than a thousand extensive and intensive first-person interviews and surveys. This article argues that ROSCAs continue, much as they did in the past, to provide critical human services, social stability, and a source of African-ancestor identity in these two nations. (Women’s power, rotating credit, Bahamas, Barbados) Identity is a central debate for the peoples of the Caribbean (Alleyne 2002; Hall and DuGay 1996; Identities 2008; Small Axe 2008), with questions of “Where did we come from, and are those biological roots tied in any important way to how we live and who we are today?” (Yelvington 2001) asked by locals and university scholars alike. This analysis aims to answer these questions about perceived identities and origins of Barbadians and Bahamians. Caribbean people, regardless of their phenotype, are choosing to attach cultural origins to key aspects of their culture, and thus privilege them over other origins and cultural patterns. Main labeling trends attribute European, African, Asian, or local origins to the development of contemporary culture, including society and language (Forte 2000; Howard 2002). Once any of these broad cultural lineages is chosen, then localizing cultural roots in space and time adds authenticity to the identity (Payne Jackson and Alleyne 2004:57–78). Rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) are a source of perceived identities and origins for Barbadians and Bahamians. ROSCAs—variously known as 72 ETHNOLOGY meeting turn, sou sou, asu, box hand, and partner—are savings and credit patterns that exist throughout the Caribbean and are typically attributed to African origins. ROSCAs also tend to be a source of ethnic pride and are central in contemporary discussions of identity. The use of ROSCAs exemplifies the resilience of people always adapting to the boom and bust economies of the Caribbean. This article compares ROSCAs in Barbados (known as meeting turn) and the Bahamas (known as asu), both islands of former African-ancestry slave-based plantation colonies of Great Britain. They are independent countries whose citizens are struggling to choose which of the various available identity streams should be privileged at the national level. Over a thousand direct interviews document that people in these two nations generally attribute their systems of rotating credit to Africa (especially West Africa), and believe that rotating credit persisted during slavery because it was widely understood among the slaves and could not be controlled by the dominant society. Bahamians and Barbadians also stipulate that rotating credit became a foundation of social and economic exchanges because it could be totally controlled by the participants, thus giving them agency, and maintain that rotating credit persists in modern times because it continues to make positive contributions to community resilience and pride, both of which are key aspects of identity. These findings document the complexity of asking the question “Why are ROSCAs so culturally central?” METHODS AND ASSUMPTIONS The analysis is informed by more than 30 years of research conducted among the residents of coastal communities in the Caribbean. These research projects occurred in urban and rural areas in Barbados, The Bahamas, Antigua, St. Lucia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Dominican Republic (Rubino and Stoffle 1990; B. Stoffle et al. 1999; B. Stoffle and R. Stoffle 2007; R. Stoffle et al. 1994). This research report is primarily based on more than a thousand quantitative and qualitative interviews collected in Barbados and the Exuma Islands and Cays in the central Bahamas. The Barbados interviews were conducted during a three-year study of traditional microeconomic systems of exchange, especially those focused on rotating savings and credit associations. During five field sessions in Barbados, 500 interviews were con ducted; of these interviews, 120 were with the people of the rural Bath Plantation area. The remaining interviews were of those living in urban Bridgetown. Interviews collected data on microeconomic systems that contribute to a creole economy. The Bahamian study involved 572 interviews with 193 people from six traditional communities in the Exumas. Gender balance was approached in the 352 formal inter views but an imbalance towards males occurred in the 221 informal interviews. During these five field sessions, approximately the same percentage of each community was formally interviewed with an overall sample size of 34 percent of the census recorded population. The Bahamas research is inductive, iterative, mixed methodologically, collaborative, and consultative. The broadest research goal was to understand how potential Marine Protected Areas (MPA) could affect local communities and which of these would best ROSCAs 73 predict local community responses to the MPAs. Conducted over six years, the eight field sessions permitted an iterative cycle of collecting data, analyzing findings, and returning to the field with new and revised data collection instruments. During these interviews, Exumian people noted that the Bahamian rotating credit association (asu) was and continues to be an essential aspect of how people work together to strengthen their communities and make them resilient. The study team conducted interviews spe cifically about asu. This article assumes that broader patterns of Caribbean life, especially those occurring over the life cycles of individuals and through traditional patterns established over many generations, can be understood through interviews and a few typical stories from a single settlement. These thousand-plus interviews documented the cultural centrality of ROSCAs. ROSCAS IN THE CARIBBEAN ROSCAs are a system for compulsory saving and microcrediting that involves people who come together based on interpersonal knowledge and trust. In many cases members tend to belong for life, thus making well established ROSCAs multi generational. The behavior of members reflects on past, present, and future generations and affects an individual’s social status in the community and to some degree in their society at large. A ROSCA, for example, that is run on an annual cycle may be struc tured to involve 12 members, each of whom places a sum of money in a common pool, the total of which is given each month to a member based on a predetermined order and rotating schedule. The cycles for many of the “meeting turns” persist, with members continuing to participate even though a cycle may have ended. In some cases, there are meeting turns that have existed for over 65 years, replacing members as necessary. In Barbados, each ROSCA is led by an “organizer” (B. Stoffle 2001) or “meeting holder” (Gmelch and Gmelch 1997). The “meeting holder” is almost always an older woman, something that is common throughout the Caribbean. It is possible that this relates to the idea that saving money is a woman’s responsibility and probably even more specifically tied to the roles of women in the Caribbean as expressed in Barrow’s (1992) work on the matrifocal family. Even though women are the predominant leaders of ROSCAs, members vary regarding age, ethnicity, and gender (Yelvington 1995:217). The key is to be of good standing in the community and able to meet the financial responsibilities of participation. Shifting cycles or the inability to make a payment involves a significant change and is negotiated by the organizer, who hears a request to change a hand rotation and then explains it to the members. A change can only be made with the approval of the members. Stability results in predictable amounts of money being available to individuals at agreed times. Flexibility of the ROSCA to meet unanticipated crises makes individuals and communities more resilient to social and cultural turbulence. Determining the origin of Caribbean ROSCAs is difficult because there is little direct evidence that identifies a place, group, or time as the point of origin. Similarities in linguistic and organizational structure and ideology suggest a link between Caribbean ROSCAs and those from West Africa and Asia (Ardener 1964; Ardener and Berman 74 ETHNOLOGY 1995; Geertz 1962). Ardener (1964) states that while no one knows precisely how ROSCAs began in Africa, indications are that the institution in West Africa is indige nous. People in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Cameroon are said to have had rotating funds that predated the arrival of European currency and were operated in kind. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, contributions were made in cowries (Ardener 1964). Purcell (2000) suggests, without speculating on the specific institutional roots of ROSCAs, that the elements of co-operation, communality, and reciprocity are characteristic of many indigenous African social organizations. For this reason many believe that historical and contemporary Caribbean ROSCAs are based on traditional African cultural organi zations. Linguistic comparisons further support the argument that some Caribbean ROSCAs are linked to African ROSCAs. For example, the susu in Trinidad (Herskovits and Herskovits 1947), the sousou in Martinique (Laguerre 1990), and asu (esu) in the Bahamas (Craton and Saunders 2000) are all linguistically similar to the esusu, susu, and isusu in West African countries. In Africa, 33 countries are recorded as having rotating credit associations, but only names from West Africa match those used in the Caribbean (Bouman 1995). Names for rotating credit associations from 20 Asian countries do not match linguistically. The combination of linguistic similarities and dissimilarities, as well as the fact that many of the people in the Caribbean were from African ethnic groups, suggests that meeting turn in Barbados (which is also called sou sou) and asu in the Bahamas are derivatives of traditional West African associations. Creole economics (Browne 2004) is a term used to describe the informal economic systems of exchange developed in situ by the people of the Caribbean. Such systems generally were experimented with during slavery and have subsequently been carried into modern times because they still serve average people better than colonially estab lished economic systems and because people prefer them. Browne argues that the people of Martinique drew on African cultural practices during slavery to make economic systems that were invisible and largely uncontrollable because such exchanges were illegal. People carried these African-based creole economic systems forward in time because they function well and are in opposition to formal economic systems of the colonial nation. Men who operate the creole economic systems are called debrouillards, who use cunning to succeed, and so become trickster folk heroes. National and ethnic identity debates are never neutral in the Caribbean (Yelvington 1993, 2006). They are hotly argued in the streets, the newspapers, and even in parlia ment. Basic to all these debates is their emergence since the end of the nation’s colonial status. Under a colonial government one’s identity as a citizen was imposed. The colonial government, usually based in Europe, determined the proper language, family system, education, religion, economy, and even the colony’s flag. With independence, the former colonies had the power to redefine aspects of their culture. Tensions arose when the former colonies were unable to control the credibility and authenticity of potential changes. Is marriage by an Obeah priest legal? Are generational land title claims equal to fee simple titles? Should the national language be Ashanti? Educational content and school leaving exams, for example, were set by Oxford and Cambridge Universities for English colonies in the Caribbean, and this continued for decades after ROSCAs 75 independence because these standards were widely recognized while local standards were not. Identity debates tend to focus initially on the question of who the people genuinely are. Biculturalism is the outcome of societies made to serve a European colonial nation but whose workers are primarily composed of unfree laborers from many cultures forced to work for others (Williams 1944:7). The most robust model of bicultural societies was presented by Wilson (1969, 1973) who maintained that two mirror-oppositional cultures exist in each colonial society and in the minds of its citizens. The official culture (called respect or colonial) was defined and legally imposed by Europeans and the oppositional culture (called reputation or creole) was developed by the people of the colony and hidden from the ruling gaze. Most people can code-switch in a moment between colonial and creole language, legal and creole economics, pronouncements on appropriate family practice, and what constitutes an appropriate religious practice. The biculturalism of the Caribbean is the only robust explanation of widespread creole economics in Martinique (Browne 2004) and the persistence of the creole family system in Barbados (R. Stoffle 1977). Resilience is a term used to describe the ability of a society and its natural environment to recover from social and natural distresses (Holling 1973). Recovery is defined as returning to a similar, but not necessarily identical, state which involves almost the original number of people and their physical distribution, but also their funda mental social structure, quality of life, and key components of their core culture that are central to well being and identity. Key dimensions of resilience in Caribbean societies involve having redundant natural and social connections “occupational multiplicity” (Comitas 1964) or “environmental multiplicity” (Stoffle and Minnis 2007). MEETING TURN IN BARBADOS Barbados is a small island, approximately 166 square miles, located in the extreme eastern Caribbean, which was claimed by the British in 1625 and settled shortly there after. Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, is located in the protected west-coast harbor, and Bath is a rural settlement on the rugged northeast coast. The first unfree laborers in Barbados were Scottish and Irish prisoners of war sent by Lord Cromwell between 1650 and 1660 and sold to planters (Frank 1920:372–373). This practice of importing political prisoners as unfree laborers continued until 1746. By the mid-1600s, sugar replaced cotton, African people replaced the Scots-Irish as the major source of labor, and large plantations supplanted small farmers (Watts 1994:176–231). By the third quarter of the seventeenth century there were more people in Barbados than in any of the mainland English colonies. Origins of Meeting Turn A cultural practice hidden during slavery usually remains undetected, so it is not surprising that meeting turn does not appear in the early historic records of Barbados. Survey and documented data suggest that its roots are of West African cultural and 76 ETHNOLOGY socioeconomic practices adapted to a cash economy dominated by slaves and free African-ancestry women. The most obvious source of cash for slaves was female huckstering—taking some product, whether grown, traded, or stolen, to sell for cash. According to Beckles (1999:140–155) slaves, particularly females, participated in the market economy as producers and distributors, with and without their owners’ permission. After the 1816 slave revolt, the official inquiry reported that “each negro cultivates a garden of his own in which he raises, with great facility, corn, ocros, yams, etc. A great part of the ginger exported is raised in these gardens. They also raise hogs, goats, and poultry and the market is chiefly supplied by the negros” (Craton 1982:257). African-ancestry people so dominated the domestic market that a series of laws was passed to regulate, tax, or prevent huckstering. These laws were largely unsuccessful. The persistence of Barbadian internal marketing demonstrates that male and female slaves struggled against laws and regulations to achieve an economic life of their own. Cash from these exchanges had to be hidden, and based on interviews, it seems that meeting turn was one feature of this invisible economy. Barbados settlement patterns changed little after emancipation in the early 1830s. Former slaves, lacking access to new lands and jobs, continued to live on and engage in wage work for the plantations that had enslaved them. The Land Purchase laws required that large quantities of land be bought at very high prices, propelling purchases beyond the means of former slaves. Trollope (1860:199) wrote, “When emancipation came there was no squatting ground for the poor Barbadian. He had still to work and make sugar —work quite as hard as he had done while yet a slave. He had to do that or to starve.” There were few positive changes in the lives of newly freed slaves. After emancipation, plantation owners would no longer provide former slaves with subsistence, provisions, housing, clothing, and medical support. Especially important was the loss of salted fish, which tended to be the only source of animal protein. Now almost totally on their own in the search for food and shelter, former slaves increasingly depended on house gardens, local small scale farming, animal husbandry, fishing, and huckstering. Because meeting turn and other matters of money are rarely discussed, there is little to document its existence. Ethnographic research using interviews and oral histories document the perception that meeting turn has been a part of everyday life in Barbadian culture for over a century. Some might argue that such associations only became preva lent in more modern times as people were increasingly integrated into the informal economy, but it is important to note that slaves controlled a remarkable proportion of the cash on the island through the sale of certain products and wares at the markets. Meeting Turn as Still Useful Meeting turn has contemporary relevance in the lives of rural and urban Barbadian people. Though in the urban setting some of the principles of participation have changed, where trust and personal knowledge have been replaced by proximity and regularity, the primary aspect of compulsory savings still exists—participation is based ROSCAs 77 on social relationships and one’s reputation. Access to a meeting turn hinges on one’s standing as a person. In the office setting, where many meeting turns are operated, the notion of trust and social standing is replaced by the fact that participants are in prox imity to each other on a daily basis and that their paydays occur at the same time. Still, compulsory savings allow people to utilize the benefits associated with participation in meeting turn as opposed to formal banking operations. In fact, for some it is because of the meeting turn that they are actually able to participate in formal banking systems, thus bridging the gap between