productivity Growth, Technical Progress and Efficiency Change in the Caribbean: Key Ingredients for 'International Competitiveness'

Malmquist indexes of multifactor productivity (MFP) in the agricultural sectors were estimated by years for the period 1961 through 1986 for Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and TobagOlThe estimated indexes show average growth rates in l\1FP over the 26 ye!lrs of -2.3, 91, 3.1, 3. 9, 0. 7, 0 .1, -1.1, and -0. 7 percent, respectively. The estimated Malmquist indexes were partitioned into indexes of relative efficiency and technical efficiencies. Technical efficiencies among the countries were compared by years and Belize defined the technical efficiency frontier in 8 of the 26 years; Cuba, 4; Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, 3 each; Dominican Republic and Suriname, 2 each; and Jamaica, 1. Tomqvist Theil (T-T) indexes for Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were available from a separate study. T-T indexes compare a country against its own performance in a base year rather than with other countries for each year. The average rates of growth shown by the T-T indexes were -1.0 and -0.5 for the two countries, respectively. The T-T estimate suggest that Jamaica's MFP performance is weaker when compared to its historical performance than when contemporaneously compared with other Caribbean countries.