An empirical study of 398 business people in the slums of Jamaica and Guyana. Explains that poor women organize local banks as a form of contestation against the threat of violence, partisan and informal politics. Argues that the banker ladies reorganize money markets for themselves and others. By organizing inclusive financial programs the banker ladies also build social capital through managing locally-based economic resources.
Examines the extent to which publicly-listed Caribbean companies provide social and environmental disclosures, and the factors related to their disclosure practices. It is motivated by the dearth of studies of social and environmental disclosures among publicly listed Caribbean firms.
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Republic Bank Limited
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
344 p, “Republic Bank has been such an integral part of Trinidad and Tobago’s society that if you browse through our book, you will see we have also captured some of this country’s history; such as how the 1990 attempted coup affected our operations.” David Dulal-Whiteway, Managing Director, Republic Bank (Trinidad and Tobago News Day, November 23 2013)
Constructs a monetary policy indicator from monetary policy documents and the actions of the Bank of Jamaica and Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, and uses it to estimate four variants of an analytical narrative-vector error correction model.
Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
4 p., In early 2010, in an effort to address its unsustainable debt burden, and as a pre-condition for an IMF agreement, Jamaica undertook a debt exchange that sought to lower interest rates and extend maturities but did not provide any haircut (a lowering of the debt principal). As part of the IMF agreement, Jamaica undertook severe austerity measures, freezing wages and cutting spending. Even after the debt exchange, Jamaica was left with the highest debt interest burden in the world. Although the IMF agreement eventually broke down, Jamaica has largely continued the austerity measures from the first agreement. Three years after the IMF agreement was signed and the debt exchange completed, Jamaica once again turned to the IMF and undertook a new exchange. Once again, the exchange only affected domestically held debt and did not reduce the principal. Once again, the conditions may prove unsustainable. The recently signed IMF agreement, together with funding from the World Bank and IDB, will give Jamaica access to some $2 billion dollars of loans over the next four-plus years. But it is also the case that, after billions of dollars of previous World Bank, IDB and IMF loans, much of its debt is actually owed to the very same institutions that are now offering new loans. This issue brief looks at the case for multilateral debt cancellation in Jamaica.
Explores the way writers address the formation and fate of the contemporary American working class in an age of neoliberal globalization. Specifically, the essay examines Russell Banks's 1985 novel Continental Drift, which interweaves the stories of two characters who pull up stakes and head to Florida in search of a better life: an oil furnace repair man from New Hampshire and a young, single mother from Haiti.
With stark income inequalities rooted in its dual currency economy, Cuba is taxing down high and unearned incomes, while trying to raise national productivity and official salaries through performance-related pay and labor restructuring. Such measures are portrayed as an abandonment of socialism, but in Cuba are discussed in terms of historic socialist debates about distribution and the balance of moral and material incentives at work, in a society still characterized by common ownership, social protection, and collective debate.
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti and its aftermath have highlighted inherent but understudied transnational governance and socio-legal complexities of disaster recovery and displacement. This paper examines the key transnational governance and socio-legal issues that have arisen in the South Florida region for four distinct groups: (i) displacees and their related legal, social, cultural, and economic issues; (ii) host communities and governance, legal, and monetary complexities associated with compensation payments (e.g., to hospitals for their services to earthquake survivors); (iii) immigrants within the United States and related legalization and citizenship issues; and (iv) diaspora communities and socio-legal issues related to dual citizenship and their ongoing struggles to have a louder voice in the future of Haiti.
Tests for the relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth among some developing countries distributed between three geographic areas, over the period 1990-2005. Findings show that foreign direct investment do positively affect economic growth in Africa and Latin America/the Caribbean.
Newly arrived from Cuba, Angelica, Dora, Marina, and Damaris attempted to negotiate new surroundings and immigrant identities, building a sense of home for themselves and their families. Data from qualitative interviews, classroom observations, and focus group conversations revealed hopes that by acquiring English language skills, they would improve their quality of life in their new country. Struggles included personal factors situated in their pasts in Cuba and their new surrounds in the Miami Cuban exile enclave, contexts that were further complicated by uncertain expectations of new lives in Miami and the overwhelming task of learning a new language at a local adult education center.
