Books by Winston Dookeran
Papers by Winston Dookeran
Routledge eBooks, Apr 18, 2023
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1997
IDB Publications (Books), Sep 1, 2013
Fourteen essays by experienced political leaders, researchers and scholars examine the political ... more Fourteen essays by experienced political leaders, researchers and scholars examine the political economy and international relations of the Caribbean. Strategies for sustainable development include proposals to link productive structures among private sectors and increase institutional flexibility.
Routledge eBooks, Mar 9, 2016
University of Toronto Press eBooks, Aug 19, 2022
The Nine Point Planning Method and its .1., St. Augustine Department of Economics. 2/ tezla c, ar... more The Nine Point Planning Method and its .1., St. Augustine Department of Economics. 2/ tezla c, ar=stzyof 19,Zrgy and Mines, Governing Document on Venezuelan Energy monitoring and reviewing plans, projects, policies and programmes with respect to energy. This of course sounds obvious, even trite, once stated. It is enoug however to consult actual experience in many countries to see that it is so often ignored in practice that it needs to be stated quite explicitly. (b) The second precondition , is related to the first. This is that there must exist, or be developed, a cadre of people with the necessary specialist skills and knowledge who can undertake the business of planning and executing policies and programmes. A review of the Caribbean situation shows that in several countries, the first precondition an effective organizational apparatus for energy planning and policy formulation-is not yet met. This is in part due to the failure to satisfy the second precondition -i.e. the finding, recruiting and training of people with the specialist skills in energy and planning that are necessary. (c) Ultimately, one cannot plan for something over which you have absolutely no control. There is a certain basic minimum degree of control that a country must be able to exercise over its energy sector as over any other sector, for it to be able to plan effectively. (d) The fourth precondition for successful planning relates to a more subtle and intangible factor. For planning to be carried out properly, there must exist in the system a sophisticated understanding of planning, exactly what it can accomplish, what its real advantages are, where its limitations lie, how it has to be carried out, what are its organizational and political implications and what its costs are in terms of time, resources, and the frustration that can come from doing nothing at times when action seems desperately needed, because something called "planning" is going on. This is related to the fifth precondition that there exists the will to plan on the part of the top policy makers in the system. In the absence of this, technocrats charged with planning are likely to find themselves frustrated and candidates for hypertension unless they develop psychological safety valves. Sixthly and very importantly, good planning depends utterly on good information. Good, sound policies with respect to energy have to be based on a thorough understanding of what the situation is in the country in question with respect to energy. Information is at the heart of this kind of understanding. It is quite clear that in many parts of the Caribbean today, these six preconditions for good energy planning are remarkable chiefly by their absence or low-level of fulfillment. Thus one of the first tasks of energy planning, as with any other type of planning under Caribbean conditions, is to seek ways of addressing these problems. (e) The second aspect of evaluating the situation with respect to energy can almost be treated as yet another pry-condition. This relates to the fact that proper and comprehensive energy planning is really infeasible unless it accompanies some planning of other areas of the national economy. At a minimum, if other areas of the national economy are not planned, their future course must at least be seriously considered. This is because energy, like manpower, is an input into other activities. Consequently, the desirable level of energy production for example, cannot be specified independntly of the expected levels of activity in other areas of the economy. What will happen, or what is planned to happen in the various sectors of the economy, the new projects slated to come on stream, improvements in the standard of living, are all likely to impact on the level of energy utilization in the society (ignoring for a moment the impact of technological changes in energy production). Energy planning therefore id:ally ought to b.2 detailed with the planning of the other major sectors and areas of activity in the national economy. Ensuring that mechanisms exist, or are created which provide for this linkage is the second aspect of our evaluation of the situation. The third stage in the process is the formal assessment of the situation with respect to enerey specifically. This involves the preparation of a set of studies which provide much of the basic background information necessary for decision-making. Analyses are conducted which permit the following questions to be answered: (i) How much energy is consumed in the country in question? What has been the pattern with respect to energy consumption historically? What does it imply, if anything?. (ii) What an-.2 the sources of the energy consumed? By source of supply; Domestic vs. Imported. (iii) What is the cost to the country of the energy consumed? This involves an analysis of the for ign exchange costs of imported energy, the cost of domestic production of energy, if any, and the relationship between energy costs and consumer welfare. Also other aspects of social cost such as the environmental impact of current and past patterns of energy use are taken up here. The costs involved in the pattern of energy usage are of course analyzed over time, and trends etc. identified. (iv) What is the relationship if any, between energy consumption and overall economic performance? How invariant is this relationship in the short, medium and long term?. (v) Next, a breakdown of the national economy into sectors/areas of activity is made and a detailed analysis is conducted of the consumption of energy by sector/area of activity, e.g. transport, bauxite, tourism, household, etc.
The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, Apr 1, 1994
Across the world, the cooperation of political parties to form governments has become more common... more Across the world, the cooperation of political parties to form governments has become more commonplace. In Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa and in Australasia, parties have joined forces and taken a partnership approach to government. In Power Politics and Performance , authors Dookeran and Jantzen, using Trinidad and Tobago as the example, demonstrate how collaboration and consensus can be used to meet the challenges facing small developing states.
Journal of International Relations, Jul 1, 2013
This article elaborates, explains and analyses the notion of Caribbean Convergence. This represen... more This article elaborates, explains and analyses the notion of Caribbean Convergence. This represents a new way of thinking about integration in the region, and a potential strategy for injecting the process with new life and energy. The article provides a twelve-point action program for Caribbean convergence, which is grounded in a distinctive series of strategies relating to finance, resource clustering, infrastructure, and production integration.
Social Science Research Network, 2020
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is opening a period of policy uncertainties upon all us. Th... more The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is opening a period of policy uncertainties upon all us. The upcoming massive recession presents critical economic and financial variables, a steep rise of jobless claims, fixed-asset investment falling by 45% year on year, capital outflows from emerging markets by $ 83 bl. Buffers and shock absorbers are weak in several emerging and developing countries, and preventing the worst case scenario, a lengthy L shape recession, the size of the fiscal injection must be equivalent to the fall in the GDP. What can Caribbean countries do to mitigate the full impact of the pandemic tsunami? Jointly to Multilateral Development Banks, Caribbean governments should require core G20 Members to repurpose climate change investment plans, and, abide by their commitments. Lacking these actions, the COVID-19 shock would develop into a demand-driven slump, opening the door to a long stagnation.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 1999
Two powerful and interrelated forces are currently reshaping the world economy. One, the globalis... more Two powerful and interrelated forces are currently reshaping the world economy. One, the globalisation of business through the spread of multinational companies, is forging increased international interdependence as a growing proportion of production enters trade and as foreign direct investment accumulates. The other, the resurgence of regionalism, certainly in Europe and arguably elsewhere, may point in a some-what different direction.
Iberoamericana: Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 1998
The Haitian anthropologist, Michel-Rolph TrouilJot, once described the Caribbean as an open front... more The Haitian anthropologist, Michel-Rolph TrouilJot, once described the Caribbean as an open frontier where hannony and discord work together; where the boundaries of culture are not easily defined, and where memories of 'roots' refuse to allow the past to be silenced or the society to be canceled .. , a reminder of Europe's distant history of centuries-old rivalries and war time conflicts. A place where the old and new worlds meet, where African, Asian and European peoples have converged and where the East-West and North-South fault Jines sometimes surface. Truly, an issue of identity, yet a silent yearning for a common Caribbean stand, even perhaps a Caribbean State. "The peoples of CARl COM and their Governments must no longer think in narrow tenns of a "Commonwealth Caribbean" but in wider tenns of a "Caribbean Commonwealth," declared the West Indian Commission, in their 1992 report Timefor Action 1 Two years later in the search for new economic and political space, the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) was set up with membership of all countries whose shores are washed by the Caribbean Sea. Cuba is a member. The United States is not. The platforms defining Caribbean economic and political space over the last forty years include the triangular trade of the pre-independence period, the era of multinational corporations and United States hegemony, and more recently, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs. Out of this framework came theories of exploitation, neocolonialism and marginalization, and the export of protest diplomacy. There followed heavy moral and political overtures for protection, special consideration, aid, trade, and investment support from the developed world. This approach may have been acceptable in the 1960s and 1970s, given the state of development thinking and the geopolitical structure of * The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations to which he is attached.
Review of Income and Wealth, Jun 1, 1981
This article describes what happens to income distribution during intensive changes in gross dome... more This article describes what happens to income distribution during intensive changes in gross domestic product due to external market conditions. It deals specifically with an open market petroleum-based economy, Trinidad and Tobago, and reviews changes in national product and income levels and the income distribution pattern over the twenty year period 1957-76. The paper argues that during the period characterized by subperiods of steady growth and rapid growth in GDP (the latter associated with the petroleum price rise), income inequality increased between 1957 and 1972 and then decreased in the post petroleum-price-rise period of rapid growth 1973-76. While the effect of intensive changes in national product did trickle down to the lower income groups, income inequality in 1975-76 was greater than that existing in 1957-58. An examination of the spatial, occupational and temporal aspect of the distribution pattern points towards the elimination of structural dualism in the economy as the surest path towards greater income equality in Trinidad and Tobago.
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Books by Winston Dookeran
Papers by Winston Dookeran