According to World Bank data, in 1980, the Caribbean’s average per capita income was twice as high as that of the average developing country. Today, the region’s average per capita income is only a third higher than the developing world.
In effect, the Caribbean has been losing its comparative advantage due to a variety of external shocks for which the region was not well prepared. The Caribbean has grappled with the drying up of aid flows, dismantling of traditional preferential trade arrangements for sugar and bananas, interventions related to anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism, and, of course, the international financial crisis.