The previous chapter focused on foreign trade, especially domestic exports. Only part of national income, however, comes from the value added associated with exports. The remainder is derived from the value added from private-sector sales of goods and services to the domestic market and the value added from public services. The Caribbean economies may have been highly specialised in foreign trade, but there was still a branch of agriculture that produced foodstuffs for local consumption, a branch of manufacturing that made goods for the domestic market (sometimes in competition with imports) and a service sector (private and public) that was largely nontraded, although foreign firms played a dominant part in many of its activities.

The first section of the chapter reviews the earliest national income calculations for countries in the region. Except for Cuba, there are no annual estimates before 1940. In the Second World War, calculations were made for several other countries, but it was only at the end of hostilities that time series began to become widely available. By the late 1950s there were estimates for most of the Caribbean countries, which allow not only for the ranking of countries in terms of national income inside and outside the region, but also for a more precise analysis of the degree of export specialisation of the different economies. Finally, household survey and tax data for the 1950s provide some of the first estimates of income inequality in the Caribbean.