Using Reggae to Communicate Monetary Policy

The best-performing stock market in 2018 was an unlikely contender, and better known for its beaches than its economy. The Jamaican Stock Exchange sits on the waterfront in Kingston and has surged more than 300 percent over the last five years. Last year, the main index tracking the country's stock exchange rose 29 percent. That success for Jamaica has not stopped in 2019. In January, Fitch upgraded the island's debt to a B+ rating with a stable fiscal outlook.

On "What'd You Miss This Week", Scarlet Fu, Joe Weisenthal, Caroline Hyde, and Romaine Bostick spoke with Jamaica's finance minister, Nigel Clarke, about this streak of success. He credited a series of fiscal and monetary reforms the country has taken. "Jamaica is emerging from a period of high debt and low growth over a long period of time," he said. "Now we're seeing growth at a level of two percent, and we've had sixteen consecutive quarters of economic growth, the longest such stretch of quarterly growth since we started measuring."