Introduction

Sir Arthur LewisLewis, Arthur (1979) addresses the worrisome trend of slowing economic growth that has been occurring in the US economy and the rest of the technologically advanced nations since the boom of the 1960s. Back then, the US economy was a third of global gross domestic productgross domestic productGDP (GDPGDP), and the primary engine of world growth and trade. The Caribbean economies are small, highly open, and rely heavily on world trade. As one who worked tirelessly in the cause of political and economic integration in the English Caribbean, Lewis, a native of the region (St LuciaSt Lucia), saw the growth slowdown adversely affecting the standard of living that depended so heavily on exports of primary commodities (bauxite, petroleum, and cash crops) and tourism. This structure of production tied Caribbean economies to the economic cycles in the MDCs and in commodity markets. From 1996 to 2006 (the year before the Great Recession began in December 2007)—a period that captures the commodity-boom years and strong growth in North America—the Caribbean region prospered, generating annual growth in per capita GDP of 3.4 percent.