The McEwan Index began with a simple frustration: too much commentary on Caribbean economics is either imported wholesale from foreign frameworks that don't fit, or reduced to political talking points with no data behind them. Janiel McEwan set out to build a publication that treats Jamaica and the Caribbean as worthy of the same analytical seriousness as any G7 economy — without losing the cultural and human texture that makes the region what it is.
How Jamaica built one of the world's most expensive electricity systems: what it will take to escape it Published by The McEwan Index · June 2026 Seven decades after independence, Jamaica pays some of the highest electricity rates on earth, a structural constraint that suppresses investment, inflates the cost
The McEwan Index exists because the Caribbean deserves better than borrowed frameworks, shallow commentary, and analysis that was never built for us. There is a moment — and if you have ever sat with a serious question long enough, you know it — when the noise of the world becomes almost unbearable.
There is a moment — familiar to every emergency call handler, on every shift, in every country on earth — when the phone rings and the world holds its breath. The operator picks up. What comes through the line in the next three seconds will determine what happens next. A child not
Prime Minister Andrew Holness wants the world to choose Jamaica — not just visit it. But as the island benchmarks itself against two of the most remarkable economic transformations in modern history, the gap between aspiration and infrastructure has never been more visible. I. The Crossroads Fifty miles wide and a
