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Over the last few decades, there has been a significant increase in the political and public acceptance of gay men and lesbians. However, this trend of acceptance is not a global phenomenon. Currently over 70 countries still criminalise private consensual same-sex intimacy, among which are 11 of the 12 independent Commonwealth Caribbean states. It should be noted that the anti-gay laws of the Caribbean are rarely used to police consensual private sexual activities. Thus, if private same-sex conduct is rarely penalised, why keep the laws in place, especially in the age where such bans are considered a violation of basic human rights? Many policy makers in the region have cited public opinions about homosexuality as a significant barrier to law reform. However, while a common view is that these laws are anchored by public support, very few studies have emerged to test whether the attitudes and behaviours of the general population are in line with this view. Against this backdrop, this thesis analyses attitudes towards lesbians and gay men and their legal rights in the Commonwealth Caribbean.The thesis begins with an analysis of support for the anti-gay laws in Barbados, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. The analysis revealed that a majority of the sample supported the maintenance and enforcement of the laws, but did not want same-sex couples to be penalised for having sex in private. This suggests that attitudes may not be as stark as policy makers suggest. The descriptive statistics also show that a significant share of individuals think that the laws (1) reflect moral standards; (2) stop the spread of homosexuality; (3) are important from a public health perspective, and (4) protect young people from abuse. Support for the laws are thus related to beliefs that homosexuality is a ‘threat’ to the fabric of society. The empirical analysis of support for the laws revealed that religiousness, interpersonal contact and beliefs about the origin of homosexuality were the most reliable predictors of public support. However, age and education were only statistically significant in a few models, and there was no evidence that attitudes varied across religious denominations. This is a contrast to the findings of studies in the West. It was hypothesised that macro-level factors – such as the large share of Evangelicals, anti-gay laws and level of socioeconomic development – could be exerting an influence on attitudes that is stronger than that of these personal characteristics. As such, the study conducted a cross-national analysis of attitudes towards same-sex marriage in 28 countries in the Americas, 6 of which were members of the Commonwealth Caribbean. In general, countries with higher levels of development, smaller shares of Evangelicals and more liberal laws on homosexuality were more approving of same-sex marriage. The results also suggest that the impact of age and/or religion is less prominent in countries with restrictions on same-sex intimacy, lower levels of development and a strong Evangelical presence, confirming the hypothesis that contextual factors could mitigate the impact of some of the individual-level variables. Finally, to get a nuanced view of anti-gay prejudice in the region, a thematic analysis of anti-gay speech in dancehall and reggae – music originating from Jamaica but popular in the region – was presented. The thematic analysis revealed that homosexuality is presented as ‘sinful’, a ‘violation of gendered norms’, ‘unnatural’, a ‘threat to society’ and a ‘foreign lifestyle’. The presentation of homosexuality as a ‘foreign’ lifestyle suggests that anti-gay prejudice could be related to fears of neo-imperialism and could be a means of rejecting ideological intrusions from the West. This is not surprising, as currently, the fight for the advancement of gay rights is being headed by activists in the West. Based on the thematic analysis, efforts to remove the anti-gay laws should be (or at least appear to be) home-grown to limit public backlash. Over the last few decades, there has been a significant increase in the political and public acceptance of gay men and lesbians. However, this trend of acceptance is not a global phenomenon. Currently over 70 countries still criminalise private consensual same-sex intimacy, among which are 11 of the 12 independent Commonwealth Caribbean states. It should be noted that the anti-gay laws of the Caribbean are rarely used to police consensual private sexual activities. Thus, if private same-sex conduct is rarely penalised, why keep the laws in place, especially in the age where such bans are considered a violation of basic human rights? Many policy makers in the region have cited public opinions about homosexuality as a significant barrier to law reform. However, while a common view is that these laws are anchored by public support, very few studies have emerged to test whether the attitudes and behaviours of the general population are in line with this view. Against this backdrop, this thesis analyses attitudes towards lesbians and gay men and their legal rights in the Commonwealth Caribbean.The thesis begins with an analysis of support for the anti-gay laws in Barbados, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. The analysis revealed that a majority of the sample supported the maintenance and enforcement of the laws, but did not want same-sex couples to be penalised for having sex in private. This suggests that attitudes may not be as stark as policy makers suggest. The descriptive statistics also show that a significant share of individuals think that the laws (1) reflect moral standards; (2) stop the spread of homosexuality; (3) are important from a public health perspective, and (4) protect young people from abuse. Support for the laws are thus related to beliefs that homosexuality is a ‘threat’ to the fabric of society. The empirical analysis of support for the laws revealed that religiousness, interpersonal contact and beliefs about the origin of homosexuality were the most reliable predictors of public support. However, age and education were only statistically significant in a few models, and there was no evidence that attitudes varied across religious denominations. This is a contrast to the findings of studies in the West. It was hypothesised that macro-level factors – such as the large share of Evangelicals, anti-gay laws and level of socioeconomic development – could be exerting an influence on attitudes that is stronger than that of these personal characteristics. As such, the study conducted a cross-national analysis of attitudes towards same-sex marriage in 28 countries in the Americas, 6 of which were members of the Commonwealth Caribbean. In general, countries with higher levels of development, smaller shares of Evangelicals and more liberal laws on homosexuality were more approving of same-sex marriage. The results also suggest that the impact of age and/or religion is less prominent in countries with restrictions on same-sex intimacy, lower levels of development and a strong Evangelical presence, confirming the hypothesis that contextual factors could mitigate the impact of some of the individual-level variables. Finally, to get a nuanced view of anti-gay prejudice in the region, a thematic analysis of anti-gay speech in dancehall and reggae – music originating from Jamaica but popular in the region – was presented. The thematic analysis revealed that homosexuality is presented as ‘sinful’, a ‘violation of gendered norms’, ‘unnatural’, a ‘threat to society’ and a ‘foreign lifestyle’. The presentation of homosexuality as a ‘foreign’ lifestyle suggests that anti-gay prejudice could be related to fears of neo-imperialism and could be a means of rejecting ideological intrusions from the West. This is not surprising, as currently, the fight for the advancement of gay rights is being headed by activists in the West. Based on the thematic analysis, efforts to remove the anti-gay laws should be (or at least appear to be) home-grown to limit public backlash.

This paper provides an assessment of the size and composition of household debt in Barbados over the period 1990 to 2010. First, the study estimates the size of household indebtedness, with particular emphasis on recent trends in household debt and the main providers of credit. Second, it attempts to show how household debt varies with key macroeconomic indicators. Finally, a cursory look at the concerns resulting from rising household debt is taken. Unlike previous studies on household debt in Barbados (Craigwell & Kaidou-Jeffery, 2010; Moore & Williams, 2008), this paper does not constrain the analysis to household debt extended by commercial banks. This more holistic approach allows the authors to capture any emerging institutional trends that might be of interest to policymakers.

The goal of this study is to examine the supply side hypothesis of tourism demand, that is, to answer the question: Does economic growth in Barbados spur tourism growth. Results suggest that there is a long-run relationship between real GDP in Barbados and tourist arrivals. Specifically, we find that a 1% expansion in real GDP is associated with a 1.2% increase in tourist arrivals. Further, our Granger causality test suggests that the supply-side hypothesis is valid for Barbados., tourismos, Vol. 7 No. 2 (2012)

The Central Bank of Barbados often intervenes – buys or sells from the foreign exchange (FX) reserves – to ensure the daily clearing of the FX market. This paper estimates an FX intervention function for Barbados using a dynamic complementary log-log model. Three general findings emerged: (i) dynamics play an important role in the Central Bank’s intervention function, meaning that the probability that an intervention takes place today is conditional upon an intervention taking place at least one day prior. This most likely reflects the fact that deficits/surpluses on the FX market tend to be persistent, resulting in intervention over a consecutive number of days; (ii) there appears to be some differences in the response of Central Bank interventions to the other key variables. Particularly, seasonal fluctuations in tourism and interest rate spreads are likely to impact the probability of a sale intervention, but don’t seem to affect the likelihood of a purchase intervention. Moreover, an influx of real estate flows is likely to increase the probability that a purchase intervention takes place, but might have limited impact on the marginal propensity of a sale intervention. Finally, (iii) ‘oil price shocks’ is the only exogenous variable which appears to impact both sale and purchase interventions.

This paper evaluates whether the tourism cycles of Barbados can be regarded as a direct consequence of business cycles of the UK, US, Canada and Barbados. The cyclical components of the series are extracted using the structural time series framework by Harvey, 1989, and the interrelations between the variables are evaluated using innovation accounting. The variance decompositions suggests that shocks to the source country business cycle series can explain up to 25 percent of the future variation of the Barbadian tourism cycle. Shocks to the Barbadian business cycle only seem to significantly affect the Canadian tourist cycle. This implies that for tourist arrivals from the US and UK are more influenced by economic developments in their respective home countries, rather than those of Barbados. Finally, Granger-causality tests indicate that past values of the source country business cycles can help better predict present values tourist arrivals to Barbados, while past values of the Barbadian cycle only Granger-cause the Canadian tourist cycle. An interesting observation is that there appears to be some delay in the reaction of the tourism cycle to the business cycles. Thus, policy makers should take advantage of the delay between the two cycles, and adopt some form of countercyclical policy to soften the impact of negative income shocks in the UK, US or Canada on the Barbadian economy.

Using the unrestricted error correction model proposed by Pesaran et al (2001), this paper investigates the relationship between economic uncertainty and money demand in Barbados. Results suggest that in the short run, agents tend to increase money holdings in the face of heightened uncertainty. However, this impact does not carry on into the longer term. Rather, the results suggest that nominal assets may become less attractive during prolonged periods of economic uncertainty.