MICHAEL HOWARD is a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. He has served as deputy dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and president of the Barbados Economics Society. His main research interests are in the areas of public finance, monetary economics, and development economics. He has published Dependence and Development in Barbados (1989), as well as a number of articles in academic journals on fiscal and monetary issues.