High energy costs contribute to dampening Caribbean competitiveness and potential growth. This paper overviews power sector challenges and takes stock of national and regional strategies to address them. It presents recommendations to move the energy agenda forward based on analyses of macro-aspects of energy reform. These include: i) quantitative assessment of the impact of energy costs on growth and competitiveness; ii) evaluation of gains from implementing announced renewable energy and energy efficiency targets; and iii) analysis of the impact of energy investments on debt sustainability. The paper argues for a bigger role for the private sector in energy reform and discusses prerequisites for good public-private partnerships.
Economic Citizenship Programs (ECPs) have recently been proliferating, with large and potentially volatile inflows of investment and fiscal revenues generating significant benefits for small economies, but also posing substantial challenges. This paper discusses recent developments and implications of such programs for fiscal discipline and the real economy, including risks to macroeconomic and financial stability, with a focus on small state economies. It discusses the prudent management of these programs, overviews strategies to minimize risks to various sectors, and addresses potential governance and integrity challenges. The paper proposes a framework for managing inflows and savings from ECPs to contain macroeconomic risks, and it recommends the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) where such revenues are large and persistent.
The question of how scaling up public investment could affect fiscal and debt sustainability is key for countries needing to fill infrastructure gaps and build resilience. This paper proposes a bottom-up approach to assess large public investments that are potentially self-financing and reflect their impact in macro-fiscal projections that underpin the IMF’s Debt Sustainability Analysis Framework. Using the case of energy sector investments in Caribbean countries, the paper shows how to avoid biases against good projects that pay off over long horizons and ensure that transformative investments are not sacrificed to myopic assessments of debt sustainability risks. The approach is applicable to any macro-critical investment for which user fees can cover financing costs and which has the potential to raise growth without crowding-out.
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