Do North-South Trade Partnerships Benefit the Export Industries of SIDS? A Vertical Assessment of CARICOM’s Exports to the USA

This article assessed the impact of the trade preference program, CBERA, on the SIDS of CARICOM and found that the PTA positively impacted the region’s exports to the US. Our econometric estimations coupled with a market segmentation technique identified that there is a negative relationship between the US GDP per capita and CARICOM’s exports to the country, which is more acute in the high- and medium-quality markets relative to the low-quality market. We argue that the expansion of the US energy industries along with the deindustrialization of some of CARICOM’s non-energy sectors are key factors in this negative relationship.