Paper: To Reclaim Prosperity, Puerto Rico Should Adapt Ireland’s Model for Modernization

Today, NDN has released a new paper from Dr. Rob Shapiro: “To Reclaim Prosperity, Puerto Rico Should Adapt Ireland’s Model for Modernization And Focus on Attracting Investors from Around the World.”  You will be able to find the full paper below in pdf form.  

In this thoughtful prescription for Puerto Rico’s future, Dr. Shapiro writes:

“Puerto Rico’s current and long-standing program for economic growth has clearly failed, and the Commonwealth government and the people it serves need a new approach.  For nearly two generations, the Island’s economic policy has focused on preserving U.S. corporate tax preferences for American firms that locate operations in the Commonwealth.  The record shows that this singular focus has produced economic decline.  Instead, Puerto Rico should adopt a version of Ireland’s economic approach, which used targeted public investments, tax preferences, and the country’s low-cost access to markets in the European Union (E.U.), in order attract large scale foreign direct investments (FDI).  In the process, Ireland transformed itself over one generation from the poorest country in the E.U. to one of its most prosperous members.”

“NDN is proud to release this new paper which we hope will become an important part of the debate about Puerto Rico’s future,” said Simon Rosenberg, President of NDN, a DC based think tank. “The commonwealth's economic course is unsustainable.  Dr. Shapiro offers a powerful vision for how Puerto Rico can regain control over its own destiny, and stride confidently into the far more competitive world of the 21st century.” 

Started in 2005, NDN and its sister educational arm, the New Policy Institute, are well established thought leaders on US-Latin American Relations, the US-Mexico partnership and Latino issues in domestic US politics.   Dr. Rob Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, Chairs NDN’s Globalization Initiative.