Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2004. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 57 p. : ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-39).

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Natural disasters are on the rise in the Caribbean due to climate change that affects several OECS member states in the Eastern Caribbean region. However, OECS governments have developed structures for reducing vulnerability and building resilience. Climate change and disaster resilience projects were implemented, and regional, national, and local support is provided. A prominent voice in climate governance debate is late Elinor Ostrom, who argues that global climate agreements should be decentralized and taken place locally rather than centrally. According to Ostrom, a bottom-up approach creates a more multilevel governing system. This approach is described as a "polycentric approach" by Ostrom. A polycentric governance is argued to provide several benefits and is effective in combating climate change. Our study examines whether the existing regional and local climate projects and programmes of the OECS member states follow a polycentric approach to climate governance. In this study, the data were analysed by employing two frameworks that are related to the theory of polycentric approaches to climate governance, that have been used in previous studies. With this we aim to capture the multifaceted nature of polycentric climate governance.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Geography, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-72).

Today, the effective management of people is assuming prominence as a source of sustained business performance improvement. The rationale for this trend is that other significant aspects of business, such as marketing, new technology, market niche, trademarks and brand image have generally been mastered. Therefore, business enterprises are being encouraged in seeking to gain comparative advantage by reliance on their human resources because this aspect of business is arguably more difficult to imitate or understand than the more conventional resources. As a result, there is an awakening of the need to introduce management practices that will concentrate on the added value which a highly motivated work force may provide to the organisation. The idea of added value from a highly motivated work force assumes even greater significance when the main business hinges almost entirely on the attitudes and approaches of people. This concept applies most forcibly to Barbados and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (BOECS), the region covered by this study. This research therefore, explores the idea of gaining comparative advantage through appropriate people management methods and follows the trend in the developed and more industrialised nations of the world in an effort to determine whether there is a useful model of effective management practices which may be replicated in the BOECS and thus lead to improved business performance in the micro states which constitute this ii region. However, this study is mindful of the limitations of the research methodology which a vast number of contributors to this intriguing topic have employed. Nevertheless, this exploratory attempt examines the issue in the light of its possible positive effect on a previously uncharted area, viz., Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean (BOECS) as far as it relates to scholarly treaties on Human Resource Management. The idea is that even in the absence of clear unequivocal empirical evidence about its benefits, it may be useful to pursue the strategic approach to Human Resource Management including expansion of employee involvement, for it own sake.

Today, the effective management of people is assuming prominence as a source of sustained business performance improvement. The rationale for this trend is that other significant aspects of business, such as marketing, new technology, market niche, trademarks and brand image have generally been mastered. Therefore, business enterprises are being encouraged in seeking to gain comparative advantage by reliance on their human resources because this aspect of business is arguably more difficult to imitate or understand than the more conventional resources. As a result, there is an awakening of the need to introduce management practices that will concentrate on the added value which a highly motivated work force may provide to the organisation. The idea of added value from a highly motivated work force assumes even greater significance when the main business hinges almost entirely on the attitudes and approaches of people. This concept applies most forcibly to Barbados and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (BOECS), the region covered by this study. This research therefore, explores the idea of gaining comparative advantage through appropriate people management methods and follows the trend in the developed and more industrialised nations of the world in an effort to determine whether there is a useful model of effective management practices which may be replicated in the BOECS and thus lead to improved business performance in the micro states which constitute this ii region. However, this study is mindful of the limitations of the research methodology which a vast number of contributors to this intriguing topic have employed. Nevertheless, this exploratory attempt examines the issue in the light of its possible positive effect on a previously uncharted area, viz., Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean (BOECS) as far as it relates to scholarly treaties on Human Resource Management. The idea is that even in the absence of clear unequivocal empirical evidence about its benefits, it may be useful to pursue the strategic approach to Human Resource Management including expansion of employee involvement, for it own sake.

This dissertation consists of three independent essays addressing several key issues related to the empirical application of optimum currency area. The first essay explores the features of the CFA franc zone by operationalizing Robert Mundell’s (1952) criteria for an optimum currency area. A vector autoregression method is used in modeling national outputs as determined by global, regional and country-specific shocks. It finds that domestic outputs of the CFA franc zone countries are strongly influenced by country-specific shocks. These results suggest that the CFA franc zone countries are structurally different from each other and the monetary union may have been a costly arrangement for the member countries. The second essay focuses on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU). A 2-vairable vector autoregressive model is estimated to investigate the extent of symmetric shocks in the small open economies of the ECCU. The paper finds that domestic outputs of the ECCU countries are strongly influenced by regional shocks. These results indicate that the ECCU countries are structurally similar to each other and exchange arrangements appear to have well served the region and the group of countries is more likely to be an optimum currency area. The third essay explores the possibility of a currency union in East Asia. In this essay, the extent of global and regional integration in East Asia is investigated using the stock price index as a measure of economic performance. A similar VAR model is employed to separate the underlying shocks into global, regional and country-specific shocks. The estimation results show that country-specific shocks play a dominant role in East Asia although their role appears to have declined over time, especially after the 1997 financial crisis. Global and regional shocks are responsible for small but increasing shares of stock price fluctuations in most countries. The results indicate that, despite years of liberalization and regional integration, economies in East Asia remain dissimilar and are subject to asymmetric shocks and it might be costly for East Asian countries to abandon monetary policy independence to form a monetary union and that a more flexible exchange rate regime might be desirable.

This thesis is a study on the liberalization of trade in tourism services that has taken place between the European Union and Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) under the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) -European Union (EU) Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). It focuses on Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They are all members of the OECS, the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) and CARIFORUM and they are EPA signatories. Using Panel Auto Regressive Distributed Lag modelling, the study is the first to empirically test the effect of liberalizing trade in tourism services (proxied by the EPA) on inflows of tourism related foreign direct investment and European tourism demand regarding the aforementioned countries. It focuses on the period 1997 – 2013. The results indicate that Gross Domestic Product Per Capita (GDPPC) is a statistically significant determinant of tourism related foreign direct investment. This supports the established hypothesis that market size measured by GDP per capita is a key determinant of FDI. Inflation rate (IR) and trade openness (OPEN) are also significant determinants of tourism related foreign direct investment whilst the EPA is not. Regarding European tourism demand income, prices, prices in a substitute destination and room supply are statistically significant determinants in the long run. Barbados is viewed as a complementary destination to the OECS EPA signatories. However, in the short run the EPA is not a statistically significant determinant of European tourism demand which it negatively affects.

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