Abstract. Examines differences and similarities in the approach to economic development of the Plantation School of Caribbean economists and of W.Arthur Lewis by locating them within their respective theoretical frameworks. By tracing the evolution of Lewis’s thinking from Caribbean industrialization to the ‘dual economy’ and then to trade and development, it argues that the focus of his later work brought him closer to ‘dependency’ explanations of underdevelopment, of which the Plantation School was one expression. Lewis’s perspective on the dependency thesis and the related thesis that imperialism is the cause underdevelopment is discussed. The paper goes on to review the Plantation School’s critiques of Lewis’s industrialization model for the Caribbean and its proposals for an alternative theoretical approach in the form of models of Plantation Economy, and compares this to Lewis’s analytical framework to show the differences and similarities. Finally, the paper discusses the contemporary relevance of the comparison of the approaches of Lewis and the Plantation School.

(From Social and Economic Studies, 54, 3; September 2005; 198-221).

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