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Eva Paus (ed), Struggle against Dependence: Nontraditional Export Growth in Central America and the Caribbean (Boulder & London: Westview Press, 1988), pp. X + 225, $35.00.

The authors rightly think that the CACM should be revived for its contribution both to regional economic strengthening and to political integration and stability. They have many useful things to say on how this might be done. Nevertheless a fuller analysis of how to overcome the many extremely difficult problems facing the CACM would have been valuable. A thorough overhaul of the common tariff and related policies is plainly needed. But the papers do not give one a clear sense of just what to do. Indeed some of the authors seem to hanker after a return to full blown import substitution while others prefer a more balanced export promotion and efficient import substitution. There is also a worrying proposal to distribute monopoly intermediate industries among the countries. This may help towards the laudable objective of lessening disparities between them, but just think what these monopolies will do to the industries that have to buy their outputs. Similarly, while the inter-country debts and related trade restrictions are well described, the way to deal with them is not clear. That there has to be a basic realignment of exchange rates is plainly stated, but there is an odd idea that there may have to be one exchange rate policy for intra-regional trade and another for extra-regional. The latter, it is said, requires flexibility while the former needs stability. However, although stability within the region is a good objective, it will not make much sense unless there is similarity in the inflation rates of the countries. Indeed, relative inflation rates will have to determine the movement of exchange rates vis-a-vis the rest of the world and also within the CACM. The heavy burden of external debt on the Central American countries is well described. Some form of debt relief is necessary. But the proposal put forward is a bit breathtaking: the swapping of all sovereign debt for the equity of a new regional institution to finance (a) export trade both within the region, which means dealing with accumulated inter-country debts, and outside it, and (b) the rehabilitation of export industries. That is quite a task; but the new institution has to do it while passing on to regional governments some of the benefits of the swap. This may be setting the kind of contradictory objectives that have brought to their knees other regional bodies like the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. Moreover, it will have to be sold to the creditors who 'would receive income at some future date depending upon the profitability of the bank', not to mention requiring some of them, for example the World Bank, to change their charters to permit equity holdings. The objectives are good, but might it not be better to seek instruments adapted to each?