应对巴哈马的生活成本：贸易多样化视角

Tackling the Cost ofLiving in The Bahamas: A Julien AcalinWP/26/50 IMF Working Papersdescribe research inprogress by the author(s) and are published toelicit comments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are 2026MAR IMF Working Paper Western Hemisphere Department Authorized for distribution by Jorge Salas IMF Working Papersdescribe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicitcomments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of theauthor(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management. ABSTRACT:This paper develops a methodology to assess the impact of a trade diversification strategy onaggregate import costs. Using granular bilateral import data for The Bahamas, we estimate that strategicallyreallocating about 2 to 3 percent of imports could reduce the annual import bill by 2 to 5 percent, depending onthe degree of import substitution at the intensive and extensive margins. A large share of these savings is WORKING PAPERS Tackling the Cost of Living in TheBahamas: A Trade Diversification Prepared byJulien Acalin Contents 3U.S. Dominance in Bahamian Imports and Decline in Price Advantage 1Introduction The Bahamas, a small open archipelago economy heavily reliant on imports for food andother essential goods, has recurrently made efforts to lower pressures on the cost of living, with some available evidence underscoring these affordability issues.1Against this backdrop,and in the face of heightened global trade uncertainty, policymakers have emphasized the need for a trade diversification framework to strengthen economic resilience.2Recentpolicy discussions have focused on reducing trade overdependence on specific markets, Using detailed bilateral trade data from The Bahamas National Statistical Institute(BNSI) at the six-digit Harmonized System level (HS-6), we show that the U.S. priceadvantage has declined over time. While U.S. imports were the lowest-cost option for 73percent of product categories in 2014, this share declined to 62 percent by 2024. Overthe same period, China’s share rose from 4 percent to 10 percent. Yet the U.S. remains The main contribution of this paper is to develop a methodology to quantify thereduction in the import bill arising from a well-targeted diversification strategy.Theestimated effects depend on the assumed degree of import substitution at both the intensiveand extensive margins. Theextensive marginrefers to the ability to diversify towards We consider four scenarios assuming that The Bahamas increases import volumepurchases at both the extensive and intensive margins.These scenarios result fromconstructing counterfactual import bills, in which The Bahamas diversifies toward (i) margin’); and it increases import volumes from those source countries by (ii) either20 percent (‘low intensive margin’) or 50 percent (‘high intensive margin’)— numbersconsistent with historical annual volume shifts—while it decreases imports from the U.S. Based on these scenarios, we estimate that reallocating around 2 to 3 percent ofimports from the U.S. to lower-cost partners could reduce the total import bill by 2 to5 percent. As imports represent about a third of GDP in The Bahamas, these savingscould translate into an improvement in the current account to GDP ratio by 0.5 to 1.5 While strategic import diversification could lower the import bill, realizing these bene-fits would require complementary efforts in areas such as transportation and distributionlogistics, product standards harmonization, and importers’ management of currency risk.Other plausible constraints include the narrow economies of scale for small countries, Literature Review.A growing body of work examines how the composition of coun-tries’ import sources shapes macroeconomic performance, price dynamics, and vulnerabilityto external shocks. Recent empirical evidence shows that import-source reallocation hasmeaningful effects on aggregate prices. In a closely related paper, Chinagorom-Abiakalamand Leibovici (2025) decompose U.S. import price movements into within-country price Cross-country evidence confirms the importance of supplier concentration in shapingimport costs.Balteanu et al. (2025) document a strong positive relationship betweenimport concentration and import prices across advanced economies. Their findings suggestthat diversification may reduce price premia and improve bargaining conditions, albeit withheterogeneity across products. From a broader development perspective, Jaimovich (2012) Trade and supply-chain diversification can improve macroeconomic resilience. Ahnand Tan (2025) shows that economies with more geographically diversified import basketsexperience smaller supply-chain disruptions and lower price volatility when exposed toforeign shocks. Their results suggest that diversification reduces exposure to idiosyncratic Relative to the previous literat