Essays on the Theory of Plantation Economy: A Historical and Institutional Approach to Caribbean Economic DevelopmentThis important book provides a fascinating insight into the conceptual under-pinnings of the theory of plantation economy initiated by Lloyd Best and Kari Levitt in the 1960s as a basis for analysing the nature of the Caribbean economy. While acknowledging an intellectual debt to Latin American structuralists and also to the work of Dudley Seers and William Demas, the authors develop an original and innovative analytical framework as a counter to more "universalist" models which failed to take account of the Caribbean reality. Their work identifies the main features of the plantation economy as a hinterland characterized by subordination and dependency on the dominant metropole. Distinguishing between hinterlands of conquest, settlement and exploitation, Best and Levitt analyse the rules that determine this complex relationship with the metropole. Their economic theories are presented against a background of the historical factors that gave rise to the "structural continuity" of Caribbean economies and which now impede meaningful structural transformation. Book jacket. |
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accounting framework ackee activity agriculture allocation Caribbean economies column commodity corporations costs countries domestic sector Dudley Seers dynamic Economic Development Economic Studies employment enterprise expansion external final demand foreign exchange Gross Gross Domestic Product growth hinterland economy imports increase industry inputs institutional intermediate investment account islands Jamaica Kari Levitt Keynesian labour power land Lewis liquidity Lloyd Best manufacturing sector mature mercantilist merchant metropole multinational corporations National Accounts national income Netherlands Antilles overseas economy petroleum plantation hinterland plantation surplus planters producing sectors Puerto Rico purchases pure plantation economy residentiary output residentiary sector revenue rise savings and investment Seers model senior staff Social and Economic staple output staple production statistical structure sugar supply surplus labour taxes terms of trade tion total institution tourism traditional export sector Trinidad and Tobago value added venture profit W₁ wage