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Research & Writing

Essays and research on Caribbean economies.

A running archive of long-form writing, academic work, and press commentary. Filter by theme below.

Weekly column

The Bridgetown Brief.

A short weekly dispatch on what's moving in Caribbean economies and business: money, work, data, AI and the long view. Written plain enough for the general reader, substantive enough to be useful to the practitioner.

New issues appear here under the Bridgetown Brief platform tag. Filter by theme above to follow along, or read the full back-catalogue.

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Latest issue№ 26

The Surplus and the Interest Bill

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Initiative

Concept in development

The Blue-Green Token.

A proposed digital financing ecosystem using blockchain and tokenisation to channel investment into terrestrial and marine sustainability projects. Designed for small island developing states first.

Read the executive summary →

Data product

Monthly · Issue No. 05 · October 2026

The Caribbean Debt Tracker.

A monthly open dataset on Caribbean public debt sustainability. Eleven economies, five metrics, re-verified against primary sources each issue.

Read the framework →

47 pieces shown

Bridgetown Brief

The Surplus and the Interest Bill

3-min read

The Dominican Republic's 2027 budget bill, sent to Congress on 23 September, plans a central government deficit of 3.4 per cent of GDP. Before interest it shows a surplus of RD$24,045.6 million, 0.3 per cent of GDP. Interest takes RD$351,327.1 million, 3.7 per cent of GDP, so the government would borrow to pay its creditors and nothing else. The fiscal risk report bound into the same bill finds that budgeted primary balances were over-forecast by 0.62 per cent of GDP on average between 2009 and 2019, and by 0.48 per cent between 2021 and 2025. A week after the bill went in, the central bank raised its policy rate for the first time since October 2022.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Rate and the Rebuild

4-min read

The Bank of Jamaica raised its policy rate to 6.0 per cent from 29 September, and one of its reasons is government recovery spending. The Independent Fiscal Commission's review of April to June shows that spending running well behind plan. Only J$27.6 billion of a J$184.9 billion capital budget was spent in the quarter, J$17.3 billion below budget, and the Commission expects the reconstruction authority's J$30 billion to have minimal impact in FY2026/27. Pay is the spending that is coming. A wage agreement signed on 27 August raises public sector pay 5.0 per cent in each of FY2026/27 and FY2027/28, against the 2.5 per cent the budget assumed, and the Commission cannot cost it.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Fund and the Bills

3-min read

Guyana's Mid-Year Report 2026 now expects the government to take 84 lifts of profit oil this year, against the 40 its budget assumed. Petroleum deposits into the Natural Resource Fund are projected at US$6,497.6 million, 136.8 per cent above the budget estimate. The withdrawal the budget may draw from the fund is unchanged at US$2,374.3 million. The windfall is being saved and the extra spending is being borrowed. Appendix E1 revises net domestic borrowing for 2026 from G$150,642.9 million to G$205,532.1 million, in a domestic debt stock that is 84.4 per cent Treasury bills.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Breach and the Denominator

4-min read

Jamaican consumer prices rose 7.9 per cent in the year to August, the third month running above the upper limit of the Bank of Jamaica's 4.0 to 6.0 per cent target. Almost none of it is demand. Transport is up 14.6 per cent on fares, tolls and petrol, food and non-alcoholic beverages 10.2 per cent on damaged crops, and core inflation sits inside the range at 5.2 per cent. The economy has contracted for three quarters. The same rising prices lift nominal GDP, and with it the denominator of a debt ratio the Fiscal Policy Paper expects to fall from 68.9 per cent to 65.7 per cent while the primary surplus drops to 0.5 per cent of GDP. One of those improvements is fiscal discipline. The other is arithmetic.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Highest Tariff, the Smallest Line

4-min read

The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago published Working Paper WP03/2026 on 7 September. It puts the implied carbon border tariff facing Trinidad and Tobago at 40.8 per cent, the highest figure in its cross-country table. The same simulation moves the current account balance by US$3 million. Both are true, because the 40.8 per cent falls on refined petroleum products, a line worth US$139 million out of a US$13,314 million export book. The exposure that matters sits elsewhere, in a fertiliser and petrochemical complex the mechanism does not yet fully cover. The Bank's own March paper priced a domestic carbon tax at US$5.34 billion over ten years, against the US$189 million the European scheme would collect at its upper bound.

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Bridgetown Brief

More Reserves, Thinner Cover

3-min read

External reserves in The Bahamas stood at B$3,227.93 million in July, 8.6 per cent higher than a year earlier. Over the same year the broad money stock they back grew 9.8 per cent. Reserve cover of M2 slipped from 31.36 per cent to 31.03 per cent, even as cover of base money and of demand liabilities improved. The new money came from the state. Public sector borrowing accounts for about three-quarters of this year's domestic credit growth, against a net repayment over the same months of 2025. Domestic borrowing creates Bahamian dollars without creating the foreign currency standing behind them.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Ratio and the Revenue

3-min read

Guyana carries the lowest public debt ratio in the Caribbean, 28.6 per cent of GDP in 2025, and the Inter-American Development Bank calls it highly sustainable. The same report puts central government debt measured against revenue at 151 per cent in 2024 and a forecast 181.9 per cent in 2026. Both readings are correct. GDP is growing faster than the state can tax it, so the denominator that flatters Guyana is not the denominator that services the debt. A net oil exporter that still buys 90 per cent of its energy abroad is now holding down fuel and electricity prices, and the primary deficit is widening to pay for it.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Buffer and the Dividend

4-min read

Barbados' banks had their best year for asset quality in over a decade in 2025. The non-performing loan ratio fell to 3.6 per cent and credit grew 6.3 per cent, the fastest pace in more than ten years. In the same year the capital adequacy ratio fell from 21.2 per cent to 19.0 per cent. The Central Bank's own reading is that the fall in capital was a distribution rather than a deterioration in earnings. The buffer was paid out.

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Bridgetown Brief

Ahead of Last Year, Behind the Plan

3-min read

Jamaica collected J$264.77 billion in the first quarter of FY2026/27, up 14.0 per cent on the same quarter a year earlier. Against its own budget the same figure is J$28.72 billion short. A year ago that quarter landed within J$16.7 million of plan. The deficit stayed near its target only because spending came in J$19.49 billion light, and almost none of that restraint fell on the wage bill. Capital spending rose 55.8 per cent year on year and still finished 22.0 per cent below what the budget asked. Ahead of last year is not the same as on plan.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Surplus and the Quarter

3-min read

The Bahamas budgeted an overall fiscal surplus of B$75.5 million for the year to June 2026. Nine months in, the Ministry of Finance reported a deficit of B$157.3 million, wider than the year before. Reaching the target would have needed the closing quarter to raise 45.2 per cent more revenue than the same quarter of 2025, against nine month growth of 3.3 per cent. Arrivals over the calendar year to May rose 14.2 per cent, but the growth was in cruise passengers rather than stopover visitors. The volume arrived. The tax base did not.

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Bridgetown Brief

More Visitors, Fewer Nights

2-min read

Barbados grew 1.4 per cent in the first half of 2026, down from 2.0 per cent a year earlier. The balance sheet moved the other way. Debt fell to 93.7 per cent of GDP, the primary surplus came in well above its programme floor, and reserves rose. Long-stay arrivals edged higher while shorter average stays cut visitor nights. Consolidation is working. Consolidation is not growth.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Cushion and the Push

2-min read

The EC dollar turned fifty this month, still at EC$2.70 to the US dollar. The reserves behind it cover 97.6 per cent of the currency board's liabilities against a statutory floor of 60. There is now a proposal to spend 5 to 7 per cent of that cover on regional development. The arithmetic says the peg would survive it comfortably. The harder question is what the cushion was ever for.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Storm That Never Lands

3-min read

The July drought bulletin from the region's climate centre puts Barbados on drought watch and warns that a strong El Niño could carry rainfall deficits into the 2026 to 2027 dry season. Last week this column looked at insuring the sudden shock. Drought is the other kind of disaster. No landfall date, no parametric trigger, no payout. It arrives as a slow rise in the food bill and the water utility's costs. It is the fiscal risk a budget is least equipped to see coming.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Cover and the Loss

3-min read

The Fifty-First CARICOM summit closed in Gros Islet with the expected headlines on integration and reparations. Its most consequential economic decision attracted less attention: a Regional Insurance and Reinsurance Strategy, and a task force to build it, as un-insurance rises across the region and the storms intensify. Beryl cost Grenada more than a sixth of its economy in 2024. For the Caribbean, insurance is fiscal policy. The question is whether the strategy becomes a fund before the next storm, or stays a task force.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Table and the Ledger

2-min read

On Sunday 5 July the region's leaders gathered in Gros Islet for the 51st CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting. The communiqué will be written in the first person plural. The members signing it do not share a balance sheet: Barbados carries debt at 94.6 per cent of GDP, Trinidad public sector debt at 84.2 per cent, Jamaica near 68 per cent. Same table. Different arithmetic.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Caribbean Minus One

2-min read

At its 56th Annual Meeting the Caribbean Development Bank reported regional growth, excluding Guyana, of just 0.6 per cent in 2025. Put Guyana's oil back in and the same region grew 4.7 per cent. One country now sets the regional average by itself. The blended figure flatters a Caribbean that is mostly standing still, and lenders calibrate their support to it.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Arrangement You Hope Not to Use

2-min read

On 22 June 2026 the IMF Executive Board approved a 36-month precautionary Stand-By Arrangement for Barbados, SDR 189 million or about US$257 million, and the government has said it does not intend to draw a cent. A precautionary line is insurance bought from strength, not a lifeline. Set against Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa and Trinidad and Tobago, it shows what a decade of consolidation actually purchases.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Food Bill and the Deal Book

2-min read

On Tuesday 16 June 2026 the United Nations launched a Deal Book of US$320 million in investment-ready Caribbean food projects in Bridgetown. The region imports roughly 60 per cent of its food and CARICOM puts the annual bill above US$6 billion. The pipeline is small against the bill. The gap between them is a financing problem, and for Barbados a balance-of-payments one.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Shock and the Strategy

2-min read

The Caribbean Development Bank held its 56th Annual Meeting in Nassau from 1 to 5 June 2026. Two documents arrived in the same week. The new Strategic Plan 2026 to 2035 sets a ten-year direction. The Caribbean Economic Review and Outlook reports 2025 regional growth of 0.6 per cent excluding Guyana. The plan and the print belong on the same page.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Third Arrangement

2-min read

On 14 May 2026, the IMF announced a staff-level agreement on a 36-month precautionary Stand-By Arrangement for Barbados, providing access to SDR 189 million should it be needed. What a precautionary arrangement actually signals, and what it means for the rest of the Caribbean, is the more important story.

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Bridgetown Brief

Surplus and Arrears, in the Same Year

2-min read

Antigua and Barbuda ran a 2025 primary surplus near 5 per cent of GDP. The same staff report flagged significant arrears to Paris Club creditors and domestic suppliers. Both sentences are true. They describe the same fiscal year. The instrument that holds them together is the Citizenship-by-Investment programme, and the same instrument tells the opposite story in Saint Kitts and Nevis.

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Bridgetown Brief

After the Storm, and Before One

2-min read

Total investment in the Caribbean averaged 28 per cent of regional GDP in 2023, above both OECD and Latin American averages. The OECD and IDB say the figure is misleading. What is driving it, and what it is actually building, tells a different story.

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LinkedIn

The mirror is still in front of us

Almost forty years after Errol Barrow delivered his "Mirror Image" speech on 13 May 1986, the question Barrow put to the country is still on the table: what kind of mirror image do you have of yourself? A reflection on civic identity, fiscal choice, and the work nation-building still demands.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Floor Beneath the Figures

2-min read

On 20 April 2026, 54,300 Barbadians received the first payment under the Cost of Living Cash Credit. The monthly BDS$100 transfer is the social dimension of BERT 2026. The quarterly review on 29 April will show the GDP line. The 54,300 payments processed show something the GDP line does not.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Price of Discipline

2-min read

Within six days, the Central Bank of Barbados made two announcements that say more about the economy than either one does on its own. Fiscal discipline without credit access is austerity by another name. With it, it is a strategy that can hold.

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Bridgetown Brief

When Tourism Is the Weather

2-min read

Fitch says Barbados' fiscal trajectory is improving. It also says the tourism base underneath is not. Cruise arrivals are up 9.6 per cent, stay-overs only 3.3. Volume has outpaced value. When Fitch flags tourism, it is flagging the ground everything else is standing on.

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Bridgetown Brief

The Gap Between January and April

2-min read

On 16 April 2026, ahead of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters that "even our most hopeful scenario involves a growth downgrade." The next day, the Fund's World Economic Outlook confirmed the shape.

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LinkedIn

An Economic Risk Framework for 2026

Everyone confidently claims to offer foresight, despite relying on lagging data. Corporate profits, GDP figures, and "the economy feels fine" headlines usually arrive after markets have already moved. If you're trying to understand risk before it shows up in your portfolio, you need a weekly checklist.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Venezuela's Sudden Shock and What It Could Mean for Barbados and the Wider Caribbean

On 3 January 2026, the United States launched a large-scale operation in Venezuela. President Maduro and his wife were captured, with U.S. officials saying Maduro would face charges and that the U.S. would "run" Venezuela during a transition.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

US Fed cuts, Canada and the UK pause: what this rate pivot really tells us

Three central banks, three slightly different stories. The US Federal Reserve has just cut rates again, taking the federal funds rate down to 3.5–3.75 per cent. Inflation is running at roughly 3 per cent, core PCE is in the high-2s, unemployment has drifted up to about 4.5 per cent.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

The US Is Now Taking Equity in Strategic Firms. What That Actually Means

Over the past quarter, the US agreed to purchase a 9.9% stake in Intel as part of a CHIPS-linked package. The Department of Defence committed to a convertible-preferred and warrant package in MP Materials that, if fully converted, would be an eye-opening position for a sovereign.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

The Los Angeles Wildfires: A Look at Loss, Costs, and Recovery

The recent wildfires in Los Angeles have left a trail of destruction that's hard to put into words. Over 23,700 acres burned, more than 12,300 structures destroyed, and thousands of families displaced. A story of heartbreak, resilience, and daunting economic challenges.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

The Role of Data Analytics in Driving Business Growth: Unleashing the Potential with Numbers

In today's fast-paced, competitive business environment, data has emerged as a company's most valuable asset. The ability to analyse and interpret data has transformed how businesses operate, strategise, and grow.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Addressing Barbados' Population Crisis: A Holistic and Sustainable Approach

Barbados faces a critical population challenge that threatens its economic stability, social fabric, and long-term sustainability. The island has seen a significant decline in its population, coupled with an ageing demographic that presents complex challenges.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Proposal for Enhancing Support for Pregnant Women and Mothers with Young Children in Barbados

Barbados faces significant demographic challenges, including a declining population, as highlighted by the 2021 Population and Housing Census. A multi-faceted approach is required, including support for pregnant women and mothers through policies proven effective elsewhere.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Strategic Economic Management: A Reassessment of the Barbados National Bank Sale Amidst Public Concerns

The turn of the 21st century marked significant economic challenges and opportunities for Barbados. The Barbados National Bank sale to Republic Bank Limited in 2003 and substantial investments in tourism infrastructure have significantly shaped the economy since.

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LinkedIn

Data as a development catalyst for small island states

In the information era, data is a decisive asset for policy. For small island developing states, how well data is collected, analysed, and used determines whether decisions are evidence-led or guessed at.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Adapting to Change: The Imperative of Recognising Trends in the Age of AI

In an ever-shifting global environment, the ability to discern and accommodate emerging currents is paramount for enterprises and countries. This holds particularly true in the age of artificial intelligence.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Fiscal Prudence as a Catalyst for Ecological Resilience

In an age where climatic flux constitutes a dire peril to our natural and economic terrains, monetary governance and ecological prudence have ascended to unparalleled prominence. Strategic fiscal tools can carve beneficial environmental impacts.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Navigating Uncertainty: The Caribbean's Economic Resilience and Growth in the Face of Global Economic Shifts

The Caribbean's economic resurgence after the pandemic has garnered commendation. But with the global economy growing more complex, the region (Barbados included) confronts fresh trials.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

A Balancing Act: Steering American Finance Towards Future Resilience

What the key indicators of American financial health show, and why they matter for the global economic order. A look at household balance sheets, debt patterns, and the metrics that signal stress before the headline numbers move.

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LinkedIn

A Precarious Balance of Debt and Savings

The patterns of savings deficit, debt accumulation, and financial vulnerability across American households. What the numbers say about how exposed US consumers are, and what that exposure means for the broader economy.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Unravelling Colonialism's Legacy: Towards a Restorative Future

The spectre of colonialism continues to loom over many nations, casting a shadow that stretches from the plains of Africa to the islands of the Caribbean and the diverse landscapes of Latin America.

Read on LinkedIn

Essay

The State of American Finances: A Precarious Balance of Debt and Savings

3-min read

A review of American households' savings, debt, and economic susceptibility. With $17 trillion in consumer debt and mortgage rates at two-decade peaks, the financial standing of many is fragile across the income spectrum, and the implications reach beyond US borders.

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LinkedIn

A Strategic Blueprint for Sustainable Development in the Caribbean

To achieve consistent and sustainable economic growth, Barbados and other Caribbean countries could adopt an approach that balances capital and infrastructure projects with the country's financial constraints and the need to manage debt prudently.

Read on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Championing Worker Interests in the Caribbean

In the Caribbean, where each island is woven into a vibrant mosaic of cultures and histories, there lies a unified commitment to the workforce. A reflection on protecting workers' common interests across the region.

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LinkedIn

NUPW Elections

Join us in changing the way workers' rights are being represented in Barbados.

Read on LinkedIn

PhD Thesis

In progress at UWI Cave Hill.

Income Inequality and the Pathway to Growth in Small Island Developing States.

An empirical investigation of how inequality shapes, and is shaped by, the growth trajectories of small island developing states, with an emphasis on the Caribbean. Expected completion: to be confirmed.

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The Bridgetown Brief.

A short weekly column on Caribbean economies and business: money, work, data, AI and the long view. Read it here, or have it land in your inbox. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.