Caricom countries and the Irrelevance of economic smallness
2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01436590701371645
ISSN1360-2241
Autores Tópico(s)Island Studies and Pacific Affairs
ResumoAbstract The pioneers of development argued that natural resources determined a country's economic structure of production. Since a small country would of necessity have a smaller endowment of natural resources than a large country, they further argued that the economic structure of production of a small country would be more concentrated than that of a large country. This article contends that economic smallness is no longer an important determinant of a country's economic structure of production. The global economy is becoming more and more integrated and knowledge skills have become the most important resource in production processes. If, therefore, small countries such as those in Caricom can accumulate in sufficient quantities the appropriate knowledge skills, they can have a diversified economic structure of production by developing new products and services, and by attracting foreign direct investment. Notes An earlier version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Institutional Thought held in conjunction with the 47th Annual Conference of the Western Social Science Association in Albuquerque, NM, 13 – 16 April 2005. The author expresses his sincere thanks to Professor John Henry of umkc for his insightful comments and suggestions on the original version of this article. 1 R Nurkse, Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries, New York: Oxford University Press, 1953. 2 AO Hirschman, The Strategy of Economic Development, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1958; and P Streeten, 'Balanced versus unbalanced growth', in GM Meier (ed), Leading Issues in Economic Development, New York: Oxford University Press, 1970, pp 366 – 371. 3 Since Adam Smith, the relationship between economic size and economic prosperity has received very little systematic treatment in the literature until the Lisbon Conference of the International Economic Association in 1957. The proceedings of the conference were published in EAG Robinson (ed), Economic Consequences of the Size of Nations, New York: St Martin's Press, 1960. 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