Dr Clive Thomas

High expectations As I tried to make clear in last week’s column, the global economic crisis-induced shift in international economic governance and authority away from the G7 club of rich countries, to the

From G7 to G20 The shift in the authority for superintending the international economy from the G7 club of rich nations to the G20 grouping, which includes the emerging economies of China, India, Brazil and Russia, was initiated by United States President Bush in 2008 when both the US and the global economy were engulfed in an economic recession, financial crisis and credit crunch, such as the world had not witnessed,

‘A truly-global crisis!’ Utilizing the IMF’s terminology for the economic classification of countries worldwide, as a group the “emerging economies” have been clearly out-performing the “advanced economies” during this protracted period of global economic recession, financial crisis and credit squeeze.

The US economy Because of the leading role the US economy plays in the generation of global output, demand, consumption, trade (imports and exports), technology, cross-border direct investment, and financial flows, the difficulties which it is presently encountering (as highlighted in last week’s column) vividly illustrate the continued fragility of the global economic recovery and why the global economic crisis is not going away.

Context:  G20 summits There have been five G20 leader-summits in the space of two-years.

As we come to the end of the first decade of the 21st century, I shall, in the course of the next few columns reflect on the international economic situation, in the circumstances of two of its most pressing and intractable problems (crises).

This week’s column and the first part of next week’s will bring to a close my discussion of the vulnerabilities to be found in the financial regulatory and oversight structures of Guyana and the wider Caricom region.

The sheer size and pervasive presence of the underground economy in Guyana and some other Caricom countries symbolize the serious vulnerabilities which plague the financial regulatory and oversight structure of the region.

In this week’s column I shall conclude the discussion of the underground economy in Guyana by highlighting some of its crucial features.

Estimating the proceeds of tax evasion, regulatory avoidance and organized crime in Guyana Introduction The underground economy (or whatever else it may be termed) along with its phantom segment as I have defined it in last week’s column, is extremely difficult if not impossible to measure accurately. 

Introduction In my two previous Sunday columns, I had developed the argument to the effect that the steep increases in remittance flows to Guyana (as well as Jamaica) reflect both criminally-inspired transfers along with transfers made by hard-working Guyanese and Jamaican emigrants living in the diaspora. 

Remittance flows and crime Last week I raised the question as to whether remittance flows to Guyana and the wider Caricom region (particularly Jamaica) was driven by the wages of sin or the wages of hard-working emigrants who form the diaspora living in North America, Europe (United Kingdom) and other Caribbean countries. 

This week I shall consider the impacts of the global financial and economic crisis on remittance flows to Guyana and the wider Caricom region.

Introduction Last week’s column concluded the treatment of Guyana’s new National Accounts series and resumed the discussion on the impacts of the global crisis on the economies of Guyana and the wider Caricom region.

Introduction The recent rebasing of Guyana’s National Accounts series from 1988 prices to 2006 prices has created three major areas of difficulty for a comprehensive evaluation of Guyana’s macroeconomic performance during the 1990s and 2000s.

Last Sunday’s column focused on two key results following on the rebasing of the national accounts calculations from the 1988 base year previously in use, to the 2006 base year. 

As indicated in last week’s column I had planned to continue this week with a discussion of the rebased national accounts series for Guyana.

Last Sunday’s column ended with a brief description of how a typical balance of payments statement for an economy like Guyana’s might be constructed. 

Role of official external financing As a rule, small relatively poor open economies that are highly dependent on the production and export sale of low-value added primary products and/or other natural resources-based products that are not presently enjoying a secular boom in world commodities markets, end up in a situation where debt-led and capital inflows-led processes become the key drivers of economic growth. 

Terms of trade  In last week’s column I had observed that, because of lags in their publication, timely trade data are perhaps the weakest of all the published economic series on Guyana’s economy.