By EARYEL BOWLEG
Tribune Staff Reporter
ebowleg@tribunemedia.net
UNIVERSITY of The Bahamas and the Ministry of Finance are joining forces to carry out a study on how the country’s economy can recover and produce sustainable growth.
Minister of State for Finance Kwasi Thompson explained that in working with UB, the Minnis administration is further cementing the government’s move to a more scientific and data-driven approach to public policy.
“Under the project, UB will research and determine optimal growth levels to support the government’s plan to set the country on a more sustainable macroeconomic path. It will expand and enhance the government’s current economic modelling and platforms and protocol by allowing for more suffocated analysis using a wider range of input and variables.”
UB president Dr Rodney Smith said: “This important study is an effort to understand better the economic and fiscal future of our nation. In fact, by mathematically and statistically examining the impact of various policy measures on an academically rigorous model of our economy, we may be able to choose the best policies to positively impact our economic future.
“We can better predict the effect of those policies on important social outcomes like employment, poverty, savings, investing, and the like. Additionally, we can better target resources to economic sectors that can produce the greatest outputs. This is the nature of the study being undertaken, and its lasting impact will be a model available for use in the future by personnel from across the government for future planning.”
He gave more details about the study.
“The Bahamas Recovery and Sustainable Growth (BRSG) study will use econometric modelling to determine policy measures that generate growth figures. Such figures are likely to produce positive trends in the country’s economic and fiscal metrics. Understanding these trends will lead towards greater economic stability and sustainable growth.
“The study will provide economic and fiscal policy options to promote the growth forecasts predicted by the study, and train others to use the econometric model in the future for the benefit of the country’s economic and fiscal planning,” he said.
The project’s timeline is 90 days.
Comments
Proguing 3 years, 6 months ago
Start by saying no to the 21% Biden corporate tax
bahamianson 3 years, 6 months ago
tax everyone, that's the only solution our brightest economic minds can come up with. even I can be a minister in the government. all I will do is increase tax whenever we need more money. brilliant, just brilliant.
tribanon 3 years, 6 months ago
In Minnis's official governance parlance there will only ever be three words: TAX, BORROW and SPEND. These are the three words corrupt and incompetent leaders live by as they go about doing the only thing they are capable of doing, i.e. growing the size of 'their' inefficient, wastful, unproductive and very costly civil workforce.
Meanwhile the Minnis-led FNM administration has shrunk the tax base of our country to a perilously low level while exponentially increasing the level of our unsustainable national debt to a record high level.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows how this will all end all too soon if Minnis and his cohorts are not given their walking papers in the upcoming national general election.
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