Structural Transformation in Haiti
- Haiti's economy experienced a shift away from tradable sectors like agriculture and manufacturing between 1950 and 2013.
- Promoting manufacturing industries may have strong growth potential.
- Agriculture-led growth provides weak overall benefits relative to manufacturing-led growth and is less effective at reducing rural poverty.
- Haiti's economic structure shows weak linkages from manufacturing growth to agriculture.
- Developing the manufacturing sector leads to higher GDP growth rates and poverty reduction.
This paper analyzes Haiti's economic structure and its capacity to generate accelerated growth and structural change using both partial and general equilibrium approaches. Simulations with a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, adapted to the Haitian context and calibrated to a 2013 database, cover the period 2013-2030. The model assesses the impact of alternative policies and shocks, including sectoral productivity growth, public capital investment, worker migration, and foreign tourism demand, starting from 2019. The study examines the long-term structural changes in Haiti from 1950-2013 and presents detailed appendices on the model structure, data, and additional simulation results.
How to cite
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), 2018, Structural Transformation in Haiti, https://publications.iadb.org/en/structural-transformation-haiti