ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a framework for addressing important development issues of the Bahamian model. It examines possible implications, problems and dilemmas for The Bahamas -should the country join the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The chapter also provides notions for an alternative development policy framework as well as policy considerations, based on the Developmental State—New Competition views, while considering structural and functional problems of the Bahamian economy. The acute degree of dependency of the Bahamian economy on the world economy in general, and on the economies of its main metropolitan trading partners in particular, is an historical and contemporary fact. The major source of the Bahamian post-war economic upsurge has arisen from the extraordinary expansion of the service sector, principally Tourism and Financial Services. The Bahamian economy can be considered to be structurally dependent, since there is a great divergence between the type of goods supplied and the pattern of domestic demand.
