Brian Francis

Trade and Economic Growth in the Caribbean: a Time Varying Coefficients Modelling Approach Brian Francis

This dissertation is an empirical study of the relationship among trade, agricultural export diversification and economic growth in the Caribbean and, based on its findings, should be a must read for students, academics, and policy makers. Indeed, the economics literature contains an extensive amount of studies on trade and economic growth and development that applied various empirical methodologies to answer important questions pertaining to the trade-economic growth nexus. This dissertation is different in two main respects. First, it focuses on Caribbean countries that have received much less attention in the literature. Second, it employs a time varying coefficients approach that captures the changing nature of the relationship among trade, agricultural export diversification and economic growth in select Caribbean countries.