Tag Archives: General Economic Analyses

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, ASCE 2014

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Arch Ritter

The papers presented at the 2014 Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy are now available.

Cuba in Transition: Volume 24: Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting.

The papers listed below are hypewr-linked to directly to their respective file on the ASCE web site.

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UNEXPECTED CUBA

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Arch Ritter

By Emily Morris

Complete article here: New Left Review 88, July-August 2014

Introduction:

What is the verdict on Cuba’s economy, nearly a quarter of a century after the collapse of the Soviet bloc? The story generally told is a simple one, with a clear message. It describes a cyclical alternation of government policy between moments of pragmatic capitulation to market forces, which account for any progress, and periods of ideological rigidity and re-assertion of state control, which account for all economic difficulties. [1] After the dissolution of the Comecon trading bloc, us Cuba watchers were confident that the state-socialist economy faced imminent collapse. ‘Cuba needs shock therapy—a speedy shift to free markets’, they declared. The restoration of capitalism on the island was ‘inevitable’; delay would not only hamper economic performance but would inflict grave human costs and discredit Cuba’s social achievements. Given his stubborn refusal to embark on a course of liberalization and privatization, Fidel Castro’s ‘final hour’ had at last arrived. [2]

The problem with this account is that reality has conspicuously failed to comply with its predictions. Although Cuba faced exceptionally severe conditions—it suffered the worst exogenous shock of any of the Soviet-bloc members and, thanks to the long-standing us trade embargo, has confronted a uniquely hostile international environment—its economy has performed in line with the other ex-Comecon countries, ranking thirteenth out of the 27 for which the World Bank has full data.

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Conclusion: An alternative?

Raúl Castro’s second and final presidential term will end by 2018 at the latest. By 2016, when the five-year process of ‘updating’ under the current Guidelines comes to an end, the aim is for the economy to have a broader productive base and a larger private sector, while retaining universal health, education and welfare provision. To achieve this, the rate of investment will need to rise. Given Cuba’s success in cultivating official relations with new partners, including China, Brazil and Russia, the aspiration to increase the flow of foreign investment seems feasible. The trickier task will be to raise efficiency and dynamism within the domestic economy, while preventing widening income gaps and social divisions that threaten the state-socialist project.

Before writing off Cuba as a spent force, the magnitude of its achievement to date should be acknowledged. While conceding that market mechanisms can contribute to a more diversified and dynamic economy, Cuban policymakers have not swallowed the promises of full-scale privatization and liberalization, and have always been mindful of the social costs. This approach, shaped not least by exceptionally difficult international conditions, has been more successful in terms of both economic growth and social protection than Washington Consensus models would predict. Comparing Cuba’s experience with that of the former Comecon countries in Eastern Europe—or indeed with China and Vietnam—it is possible to identify some distinguishing features of its path.

First, Cuba was able to maintain a social safety-net during the crisis, in sharp contrast to the others. In the context of the island’s uniquely severe exogenous shock and hostile external environment, a commitment to universal welfare provision undoubtedly served to limit social hardship. Linked to this has been the process of extensive popular consultation, particularly at three critical moments—the onset of the crisis, the stabilization process, and the prelude to Raúl Castro’s new adjustment phase. Third, by retaining control of wages and prices during the early period of shock and recovery, it was possible to restore stability relatively quickly by restraining an inflationary spiral. Although fixed wages and prices created the conditions for a flourishing informal economy, they also served to minimize disruption and limit the income gap within the formal economy. Though the two are quite distinct, the strategy bears comparison with China’s ‘dual track’ system, in which the ‘planned’ track is maintained while a ‘market’ track develops alongside, providing opportunities for experimentation and learning. For all its inefficiencies and confusions, Cuba’s ‘bifurcation’ and ‘second economy’ played a part in adjustment to the new conditions.

Fourthly, the state retained control of the process of economic restructuring, allowing it to channel the very limited hard-currency resources to selected industries, achieving a remarkable recovery of foreign-exchange earnings relative to the amount of capital available. These enterprises also served as ‘learning opportunities’ for Cuban planners, managers and workers to think through how to adapt to altered international conditions. The export base created by this approach may be too narrow to drive sustainable growth over the long term, but it was an efficient way to restore capacity after the crisis period. Finally, Cuba’s rejection of the mainstream ‘transition-to-capitalism’ route allowed space for a process of adjustment—described by one official as ‘permanent evolution’ [57] —that has been flexible and responsive to Cuba’s changing conditions and constraints. This contrasts sharply with the more rigid recipes for liberalization and privatization pedalled by the hordes of transition consultants in other former Comecon countries. Cuba is a poor country, yet its health and education systems are beacons in the region. Its approach has shown that, despite contradictions and difficulties, it is possible to incorporate market mechanisms within a state-led development model with relatively positive results in terms of economic performance and social outcomes.

This raises the next question: why should we assume that the state will withdraw from its dominant role within the economy, or that the current approach to policy must eventually give way to a transition-to-capitalism path? A fundamental assumption of transition economics has been Kornai’s claim that ‘partial alteration of the system’ cannot succeed; efficiency and dynamism will only be maximized when the transformation from a ‘socialist planned’ economic system to a ‘capitalist market’ one is complete, because the former is too inflexible to survive over the long term. But the experience of former Comecon countries has demonstrated that success is far from guaranteed and that social costs can be high. Viewed without preconceptions, the Cuban case suggests that another way might be possible, after all.

untitledEmily Morris

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BUILDING THE NEW CUBAN ECONOMY

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Arch Ritter

By Mimi Whitefield, Miami Herald

12/14/2014

Read more here: New Economy

Just a couple years ago, tourists who wanted to sample one of Cuba’s paladares were on their own. A bus from state tour operator Havantur wouldn’t think of stopping to allow visitors to dine on roast pork or grilled red snapper at one of these small private restaurants.

No more. Now, government tourism companies are doing business with them, booking reservations for tour groups at both paladares and casa particulares — private bed-and-breakfasts. “A few of our casas have been block-booked by Havanatur and Transtur,” said Matthew Sellar, who runs Scotland-based CubaCasa, an online booking site for private accommodations.

Call such co-existence the inevitable advance of market forces as the hemisphere’s only communist nation reforms its creaking state-owned, centrally planned economy. But entering the fifth year of a process that ultimately led to the economic reforms, the changes are still very much a work in progress with daunting challenges ahead.

 

MUCH UNFINISHED WORK REMAINS AS CUBA REFORMS ITS ECONOMY

The reforms are not nearly as fast or as profound as many — inside and outside the country — would hope. Cuban leader Raúl Castro has often said the process will continue “sin prisa pero sin pausa” (without haste but without pause).

Since the economic guidelines — or lineamientos — were approved, Cuba has allowed limited self-employment and worker-owned cooperatives, revamped its foreign investment law and agriculture system, allowed the private sale of homes and cars, changed rules so Cubans can more freely travel abroad and begun to phase out the ration book.

“The biggest change is that the government and the party have now accepted the idea of a larger private sector,” said Phil Peters, president of the Cuban Research Center and a regular traveler to Cuba. “You see it in every town in Cuba — and it’s being discussed around every family table in Cuba. It’s a huge ideological shift, and it’s not something you would have seen under Fidel Castro.”

But when Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo visited Cuba in November, he urged the government to pick up the pace. “Spain would like to see a more rapid pace to the economic reforms that give more space for private initiative and foreign investment,” he said.

The changes extend beyond the purely economic.

In 2013, Cuba removed the bureaucratic barriers that made it so hard for Cubans to take foreign trips and also allowed its people to stay abroad for up to two years without losing citizenship rights. That meant Cubans seeking an economic solution no longer had to leave their homeland definitively to take part in the global economy or seek new opportunities.

The reforms also have laid bare Cuba’s racial divide. But unlike in the past, the government has now sanctioned discussion about the economic inequities between blacks and whites.

“The population generally speaking wants change. There is a thirst for change,” said Arch Ritter, an economist and Cuba scholar at Carleton University in Ottawa. “The economic changes are real.” But the government “could prevent the reforms from going much further if they threaten the political control of the [Communist] Party,” he added.

Already some targets have slipped. The government initially said it wanted to move 500,000 Cubans off state payrolls into self-employment by 2011. Then the target was revised to 1.8million workers by 2015. Early this year, state payrolls had been reduced by 596,500 workers through layoffs and by converting workplaces to co-ops. Some 476,000 self-employed workers were registered at the end of September.

But analysts say significantly speeding up dismissals from state enterprises is risky for the Cuban government because it could cause social problems.

So far, the government has made reforms only around the edges. Castro talks of perfecting or updating the current socialist system instead of doing away with it. But it’s also clear Havana wants a smaller government, a more vibrant economy and citizens who don’t look at emigration as the only solution to economic problems.

Though the government has blown hot and cold on foreign investment, officials now say foreign investors are essential to spurring the type of growth Cuba needs to develop. This fall, it released a wish list of 246 projects for which foreign money is welcome.

And the 800-pound gorilla — unifying Cuba’s dual monetary system and fixing its haphazard pricing system — has yet to be dealt with, although the government says it is preparing conditions for elimination of the two-tiered system.

What all the reforms will add up to is something of a mystery. “The Cuban government hasn’t set out clearly what the desired end state should be. They haven’t laid out a clear development model,” said Richard Feinberg, a professor of international political economy at University of California, San Diego and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Castro — who officially became Cuba’s leader in 2008, two years after he took the reins from his ailing brother — has made it clear he won’t be rushed. He “likes to experiment before moving forward and measure the results and the repercussions,” said Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban intelligence analyst who now lives in South Florida.

“That’s reasonable, but Raúl just doesn’t have the time,” said Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Cuba expert and economics professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.

FAILED STATUS QUO

The reforms were fueled not so much because Cuban leaders truly embraced them but because they had little choice as the world shifted, support from traditional allies came into question, and the economic status quo became unsustainable.

Cuba has previously flirted with economic reforms and pulled back when its economy has improved. But Amuchastegui said “reversing the process is now out of the question, and everyone knows that.”

So far, the results have been mixed and economic growth has remained sluggish.

The Cuban economy is expected to grow by only 1.3 percent this year, according to government estimates. The 2014 target was 2.2 percent. The merchandise trade deficit in 2013 topped $9billion — the second-highest ever.

At a recent Cabinet meeting, Economy Minister Marino Murillo Jorge said 2015 growth was expected to come in at just over 4 percent. The U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean estimates 2015 growth at 3 percent. Mesa-Lago finds both estimates optimistic.

The problem in gauging the reforms’ success or failure, said Peters, is that the process isn’t complete. “There has been substantial progress in many areas, but they’re not done,” he said.

Although self-employment is proceeding more slowly than the government envisioned, it now seems to have moved beyond simply legalizing the shadowy realm of Cuba’s informal economy and black marketeers.

Among the most popular fledgling businesses are those linked to the tourist trade. Both casas and paladares have been legal since the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union plunged Cuba into an economic crisis. Then the regime seemed to view them grudgingly as competition rather than business partners.

“Now, they’ve begun to integrate them into the broader economy,” said William LeoGrande, an American University professor who specializes in Latin America.

Also spurring the establishment of new paladares is a change in rules that allows them to hire staff rather than just family members. Up to 50 seats are also permitted, compared to 12 previously. Mood lighting, contemporary art, terrace or poolside dining, nouveau cuisine and Cuban fusion dishes are among the features of the most upscale ones.

Sellar recently visited Havana to add more casas particulares to his online booking site. The 20 new ones he liked will bring the total on the site to 120. During the high season in December and January, most have no vacancies, he said. Casa owners also have been busy upgrading with new Chinese bathroom fixtures, air conditioning — even rooftop hot tubs — and adding services. The Artedel Luxury Penthouse in Havana, for example, offers a private driver, a translator and assistant, massage and laundry and will organize salsa and Spanish classes for guests.

In September, the government announced plans to gradually shift Cuba’s 8,984 state-owned restaurants into private hands — although it will still own the land they sit on. And more than three years ago, the government began turning over state-owned beauty salons and barber shops to employees who run them as cooperatives. Murillo said the creation of 498 cooperatives has been approved, and 329 of them are in operation. Another 300 proposals are under evaluation, he said.

“The key now is these non-agriculture cooperatives. If the Cubans do this right, it will create a means to move a large number of small and medium-sized state businesses to the private sector,” Peters said.

But many of the self-employed are hustling to merely get by. During a recent trip to Cuba, LeoGrande found one street-corner cuentapropista whose business was refilling disposable plastic lighters. He’d drill a hole, fill it up with lighter fluid and then cover the hole. Almost all the private ventures he saw — from bicycle repair shops to pizza stalls were tiny. “I got the sense they are open to taking advantage of any opportunity they see,” he said.

When Amuchastegui traveled to Artemisa, a small city west of Havana, in November, he found lots of home building and renovation taking place as well as many small private businesses from cellphone and computer repair shops to carpenters’ workshops. “It’s become business and making money, business and making money,” he said. At the Banco de Crédito y Comercio, said Amuchastegui, lines snaked down the block as people waited to apply for credits, mostly for home improvements.

WEAK AGRICULTURE REFORM

But if self-employment is the most visible of the reforms and among the most popular, agricultural reform may be the least successful.

“For me, agriculture is the key to a successful economic reform, and so far they don’t have the results,” said Mesa-Lago.

In an effort to boost its agricultural output, Cuba announced a new plan for land tenure in 2009 and then further reformed the process in 2012 to allow larger plots and permit small farmers to build homes and barns on the land. Although the state retains ownership of the land, farmers are allowed to cultivate it under 10-year contracts with the state.

“It is not doing the trick,” Mesa-Lago said. Among the problems, he said, is the farmer must be tied to inefficient state farms or cooperatives to get seeds and farm equipment and must market through them. Investments in the land also are restricted by the state.

Other reforms established wholesale markets for farm supplies and eliminated the requirement that 70 percent of the harvest be sold to the state at set prices. But the latter reform applies to only three provinces — Havana, Mayabeque and Artemisa.

“Essentially, they need to provide more incentives for farmers,” Feinberg said.

It’s possible agricultural production will edge up slightly this year, but it will be below 2005 levels and well below the peak year of 1989, said Mesa-Lago. “Cuba is still importing 70 to 90 percent of the food it needs at a cost of around $2 billion annually,” he added. Next year, the government estimates food imports will increase to $2.194 billion.

Since Cuba began allowing its people and permanent residents to freely buy and sell real estate in November 2011, se vende signs have begun to pop up on homes and apartments. Last year, real estate agents, who had long operated illegally, were added to the list of approved self-employment jobs.

Internet sites like Revolico.com and cubisima.com also have sprung up. The cubisima site recently listed a four-bedroom, three-bath colonial home on Miramar’s Fifth Avenue that had been partially renovated for $280,000.

“This is a game changer,” said Antonio R. Zamora, a Miami lawyer who specializes in foreign investment. For the first time since the early days of the revolution, Cubans have been able to unlock the value of their homes and begin building capital, he said. “It’s a big change in the net worth of the Cuban people — and it doesn’t really involve the government” other than making payment through a state bank, recording a sale and paying tax on it, Zamora said.

Despite all the activity, Mesa-Lago said, there are still only pockets of a market economy in Cuba. The changes to date, he said, add up to only a “fraction of the total economy.” He’d like to see the reforms accelerate and deepen — and he believes Castro, who is 83 years old and plans to retire in February 2018, may have the best chance of pushing them through.

That’s because it’s unclear whether Miguel Díaz-Canel, first vice president of Cuba’s Council of State and Castro’s heir apparent, or whoever succeeds Raúl Castro will have the same political clout as he does to carry out reforms that may be unpopular with Communist Party conservatives, Mesa-Lago said. “They are afraid of delegating economic power, and they fear what happened in Eastern Europe,” he said. “They want to avoid the classic example of the snowball that gets bigger and bigger and can’t be stopped.”

SOME PHOTOS OF THE NEW ECONOMY (by Arch Ritter, 2014)

New Cooperative BusCooperative Bus, coming up Aguilar St. at Reina

Cuba Mar 2014 060Food Vender in the Street

Cuba Mar 2014 080Private Barber Shop on Agramonte

Cuba Mar 2014 105“Casas Particulares” on Neptuno

Cuba Mar 2014 114Advertising Private Enterprises

Cuba Mar 2014 118Tourists at the Plaza Vieja

Cuba Mar 2014 084Not the New Economy: Old Sugar Mill Locomotive on Display near the Capitolio

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MUCH UNFINISHED WORK REMAINS AS CUBA REFORMS ITS ECONOMY

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Arch Ritter

December 14, 2014 – Miami Herald – MIMI WHITEFIELD

Original here: UNFINISHED WORK

Unifying Cuba’s cumbersome dual-currency system tops the list of reforms the government says it will carry out, but analysts say other changes — from measures to speed up foreign investment to a new tax structure — are critical to deepen and expand the reforms.

Cubans use one type of money, the Cuban peso, for everyday purchases and most salaries. But tourists generally use another currency, the convertible peso, which is also needed to purchase coveted consumer items.

To add to the confusion, there’s also one exchange rate for state enterprises and another for Cuba’s fledgling private businesses. The official exchange rate is 25 Cuban pesos (CUPs) for one Cuban convertible peso (CUC), but for state enterprises the CUP is on par with the CUC. One CUC equals $1 U.S.

The government first said it planned to eliminate the unwieldy two-tiered system in 2013 and work toward a single currency, the Cuban peso, but currency unification remains the most important piece of unfinished business as Cuba seeks to overhaul its ailing economy.

“This is probably the most difficult reform of all. It’s extremely complex but it’s also a key reform, especially at a time when Cuba is trying to attract foreign investment,” said Carmelo Mesa-Lago, an economist who has written extensively on Cuba.

Not only is the CUC over-valued but it creates distortions across the Cuban economy. The 1-1 exchange rate, for example, makes it difficult to determine the true productivity of state enterprises. Most wholesale and retail prices in Cuba are out of whack and the over-valued CUC tends to make Cuban exports less competitive.

“It holds them back and deforms everyone’s economic behavior,” said Arch Ritter, an economist and professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.

The dual-currency system also has created severe wage disparities in Cuba. Those who work for foreign companies and receive tips paid in CUCs are far better off than those who work for the state and receive their salaries in CUPs.

Cuban Economy Minister Marino Murillo said last month that eliminating the dual-currency system is the most important task now before the government and that certain transitional steps are underway.

There had been speculation that currency unification would come as a big bang, but now it appears the government is taking the gradual approach.

Stores that once only accepted CUCs have begun to accept both currencies, and prices are now being posted in both currencies at selected stores. The practice is gradually being rolled out across the island.

The government also has been running small-scale experiments with different exchange rates — 10 CUPs for 1 CUC, for example — in some state industries, said Mesa-Lago.

Analysts said a realistic and unified exchange rate will make the Cuban economy more competitive, but the process isn’t without risks, and there may be winners and losers during the transition.

“They need to be very careful; there could be unrest,” said Richard Feinberg, a professor of international political economy at the University of California, San Diego and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

But government officials have tried to calm the population by saying the currency unification will be done in way that won’t be detrimental to those who have maintained their savings in Cuban banks in either CUCs or pesos.

“I don’t know how they will do this,” Mesa-Lago said. “There is also the possibility that it will generate inflation. But if they do it right, in the long-run it will be beneficial.”

Feinberg and a group of scholars and economists from the United States, Cuba and other Latin American countries met over the course of a year to examine how to shape Cuban economic policy in a way that encourages sustainable growth.

“We wanted to look at a country transitioning from a central economy to a somewhat more market-oriented economy” and study it from the point of view of economies that have already gone through the process, Feinberg said.

“We’re not saying you can take lessons learned and copy them like a stencil but there is no point in repeating mistakes,” he said.

The collaboration resulted in a Brookings report, Cuba’s Economic Change in Comparative Perspective, that concludes now is the time for Cuba to accelerate its reforms and prioritize price reforms, expansion of the private sector, foreign investment and gradual engagement with international financial institutions.

Phil Peters, president of the Cuba Research Center in Alexandria, Va., agrees that the government needs to come up with a way to allow lawyers, engineers, architects, consultants and other professionals to engage in self-employment.

Some are getting around the prohibition. An architect, for example, may take out a license as a self-employed construction worker, Peters said.

“But if they don’t find a way to allow skilled professionals to work, they are leaving a lot of money on the table,” he said.

There are other missing pieces — both big and small — in Cuba’s economic reform process. If they’re implemented, Cuba analysts say they would make the island’s fledgling entrepreneurs more successful and could help revive economic growth.

When Cuba’s National Assembly convenes Friday, it’s expected to review the reforms to date, and discuss the 2015 budget and the island’s new foreign investment law.

Not so much a missing piece as a question mark is Cuba’s ability to attract foreign investment, which officials have said is essential to the island’s development plans.

This fall, Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz announced 246 projects adding up to an investment of $8.7 billion that are open to foreign investment. The government hopes to attract $2 billion to $2.5 billion annually from foreign investors.

Among the projects on the wish list are 86 in the oil industry, 56 tourism projects — including golf-condo projects and 21 new hotels, a plant to produce bottles and another to produce aluminum cans, shrimp and peanut farming projects and wind farm projects where 100 percent foreign ownership will be allowed.

Health, education, the media and the military remain closed to foreign investment.

The Cubans hope that their foreign investment list in combination with the new foreign investment law plus a special economic zone tied to expansion at the Port of Mariel will entice the investors who are needed to jump-start development.

Malmierca has said the Cuban economy must grow at the lofty level of 7 percent annually for the type of development the country needs and that foreign investment will play an important roll in that equation.

The foreign investment law exempts investors from paying a tax on profits for eight years and cuts the tax from 30 to 15 percent.

But foreign firms will not be free to hire and pay workers directly.

“A lot of potential foreign investors question whether there will be sufficient freedom, profitability and security for their investments,” Feinberg said.

Malmierca himself also pinpointed another issue that makes foreigners wary. “Many people complain about the time in which we do things, but everyone’s got their own pace. We’re going to do this our way and we want to do it well,” he said.

In the past, approvals for joint ventures have often come at a glacial pace and the process has been excessively bureaucratic.

The 180-square-mile Mariel Special Development Zone, about 30 miles west of Havana, is supposed to be a focal point for foreign investment and offers the possibility of 100 percent ownership for foreign ventures that set up there.

Cuban leader Raúl Castro and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff jointly opened the first phase of the nearly $1 billion Port of Mariel renovation in January. It is largely financed by Brazil and Cuba purchased more than $800 million in goods and services from Brazilian suppliers during construction.

The container port, which is eventually supposed to take Havana’s place as Cuba’s main commercial port, is operating and a ship from South Florida, a Crowley vessel loaded with frozen chicken, was the first to call. A rail link to the port also has been completed.

But those who have toured the special development zone recently say it is far from finished and companies are yet to move in. Build-out for specific projects is expected to take place some time next year.

Tim Cole, the British ambassador to Cuba, was among the recent visitors. “What’s immediately striking as you drive in is the ambitious nature of the project. The area set aside for the zone is huge… with plans that include logistics facilities for offshore oil exploration and general cargo and bulk foods facilities,” he wrote in his blog.

“There are, apparently, more than 100 companies who have expressed an interest with the first projects likely to be approved by the end of the year,” Cole wrote. “Deadlines are tight as those companies coming to Mariel will need efficient services — for example, water, sewerage, electricity and high-speed Internet — to be able to operate.’’

As the work proceeds in Mariel, enforcement of the slew of new regulations and tax evasion by budding entrepreneurs remain problems for the government.

Granma, the Communist Party daily, recently reported that the government plans to tackle a number of enforcement issues in 2015. Among them: the under-reporting of income by self-employed workers and misrepresentation of how many workers they employ in their businesses.

Changes allowing Cubans to take full advantage of the new real estate market are also needed. Before Cubans could legally buy and sell homes, a permuta or swap was the way people moved from house to house — often with an under-the-table cash payment to sweeten the deal. Some of that sleight-of-hand has translated to the new market with off-the-books foreign owners putting up money for purchases, buyers and sellers declaring a lower-than-actual purchase price to lessen taxes and sales masquerading as donations.

To curb such practices and help calculate taxes, Granma reported that Cuba will begin using a market-based assessment tool that considers a number of factors, including the number of rooms, location and amenities, such as a garden or patio.

Granma also said the government planned to crack down on illegal economic activity in the coming year and concentrate on increasing the productivity and efficiency of state enterprises to stem losses. A new 2 percent tax on wholesale transactions also will be levied in 2015.

Other issues Cuba needs to address as it shapes economic policy are boosting agricultural production by giving small farmers more incentives, making more credits available so small entrepreneurs can expand their business, and improving wholesale markets, according to Cuba watchers.

Ritter said that even though he’d like to see a complete overhaul of Cuba’s labor laws and wage system, “I don’t think they’re going to do this.”

“The lineamientos were most ambitious,” he said. “If the Cubans could manage to do everything outlined in the lineamientos, it would be a huge reform.”

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CUBA’S ECONOMY AT A CROSSROADS

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Arch Ritter

Original Here: NY Times, Editorial: Cuban Economy

Leer en español

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD, DEC. 14, 2014

In July 2007, while serving as acting president as his brother underwent medical treatment, Raúl Castro delivered a startling indictment of the Cuban economy when he railed about the inefficiencies of the dairy industry. His description of the onerous and expensive mechanism to get milk from cows to dinner tables was old news to Cubans, who have been subjected for decades to a centrally planned economy that is among the world’s most dysfunctional and anomalous. It soon became clear that Mr. Castro’s unexpected candor that day signaled the start of a transformational era for the island’s economy.

After Fidel Castro ceded power to his brother in 2008, the government initiated reforms that have allowed Cubans to start building livelihoods that are not wholly subject to state control. The pace has been halting, with plenty of backtracking from the government’s old guard, which views further liberalization of the economy as an abdication of the socialist system Fidel Castro made sacrosanct.

The looming end of the Castro era — Raúl Castro, 83, has said he will step down in 2018 — is unfolding amid a vigorous debate on the future of the country’s economy.

To date, the Obama administration has watched the reforms with skepticism. The White House has eased restrictions on remittances and travel to the island, but it has done relatively little else to pare down the web of sanctions the United States has imposed on Cuba for decades.

President Obama could help expand the role of Cuba’s small but growing entrepreneurial class by relaxing sanctions through executive authority and working with the growing number of lawmakers who want to expand business with Cuba. The White House could start that process by removing Cuba from the State Department list of countries that sponsor terrorist organizations and making it easier for Americans to provide start up-capital for independent small businesses. Doing that would empower Cuban-Americans to play a more robust role in the island’s economic transformation. More significantly, it would gradually erode the Cuban government’s ability to blame Washington for the shortcomings of an economy that is failing its citizens largely as a result of its own policies.

Before Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, Cuba’s economy was heavily reliant on the United States, which bought the bulk of its main export, sugar. American tourists flocked to the island, lured by its proximity, tropical weather and raucous night life.

After the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista, an authoritarian leader who had protected American commercial interests on the island, Fidel Castro’s government asserted control over virtually every segment of the economy. It seized land and assets from American companies and vowed to guarantee all citizens housing, health care and education. Communism brought an ever more anemic and backward economy, one propped up largely by Moscow. But after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so did Cuba’s economy.

Cubans euphemistically call the stark deprivation of the 1990s the “special period,” a time when the Cuban government was forced to allow in some foreign investment and authorize limited private-sector employment. In 1999, Havana found a new benefactor in the newly elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez — which gave Cuban officials the ability to retighten state control of the economy. But in the last two years Venezuela, which provides heavily subsidized oil to Cuba in exchange for medical services, has struggled with a worsening economic and political crisis, which could force it to cut off subsidies to Havana.

The precariousness of that relationship has added urgency to the debate over how fast the Cuban government needs to implement the reforms Raúl Castro endorsed. Old-guard leaders warn that a liberalized market economy could turn Cuba into a less egalitarian society and provide an opening for the United States to destabilize the government through a flood of private investment. Reformists, including some of the country’s leading economists, say the current state of the economy is untenable.

The reality is that the island’s social welfare achievements cannot be sustained if current economic and demographic trends hold. Cuba is currently ranked in the top tier of the United Nations Human Development Index, a measure of a country’s education level, life expectancy and other variables. That’s an achievement matched by only two other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Argentina and Chile.

Wages in Cuba are worth roughly 28 percent of what they were before the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy at the state-run University of Havana. The devaluation has turned workplace theft into a major problem. It has also led tens of thousands of Cuban professionals to emigrate to the United States and elsewhere in Latin America in recent years in search of a better life. The country’s birthrate is declining, while its elderly are living longer.

The agricultural sector remains stymied by outdated technology and byzantine policies. A foreign investment law Cuba’s National Assembly approved in March has yet to deliver a single deal. Adding to the challenges, the Cuban government has pledged to do away soon with its dual-currency system (which includes a dollar-pegged peso established in the 1990s when tourism opened up), a process that could drive up inflation. Yet against the picture of stagnation is the growth of a new class of private-sector employees, now nearly 500,000 strong. That’s not a huge number in a nation of 11 million, but they are a marvel of ingenuity in a place where running a private restaurant requires buying virtually all ingredients on the black market. Basic staples, like potatoes, must be purchased as contraband in Cuba.

Many of those building small businesses, such as bed-and-breakfasts, are Cubans who returned with savings earned abroad and those with relatives outside the country who provided start-up capital. All struggle with the bureaucracy, since they are unable to import legally items as basic as mattresses and pillows. Bringing items from the United States is onerous and complicated by American sanctions. Cuban authorities appear conflicted about the growing private sector. While they welcome the employment and tax revenue it generates, bureaucrats are throttling businesses that are doing particularly well and forcing some to become joint ventures with the state. The underlying message seems to be: We want prosperity but not overly prosperous individuals.

Washington could empower the reformist camp by making it easier for Cuban entrepreneurs to get external financing and business training. That type of engagement is unlikely to succeed unless the United States abandons its policy of regime change. Cuba’s economic transformation may be proceeding slowly, but it could well lead to a more open society. For now, continued antagonism from Washington is only helping the old guard.

 moa-1

The Moa Bay Nickel Smelter

HAV_MeliaCohiba_Aerial_001Melia Cohiba Hotel and Hotel Riviera on the Right

g-lectores-de-tabaqueria-512Cigar Manufacture

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Review Essay, REVOLUTION IN THE REVOLUTION: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CUBAN ECONOMY

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Arch Ritter

 Latin American Research Review, Volume 49, Number 3 (2014)

By Arch Ritter

hdrs-eng Original article here: https://lasa.international.pitt.edu/LARR/prot/fulltext/vol49no3/49-3_246-255_Ritter.pdf

Cuban Economists on the Cuban Economy. Edited by Al Campbell. Gainesville, FL: The University Press of Florida, 2013. Pp. xvii + 337. $79.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780813044235.

Cuban Economic and Social Development: Policy Reforms and Challenges in the 21st Century. Edited by Jorge I. Domínguez, Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, Mayra Espina Prieto and Lorena Barberia. David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, USA, 2012. Pp. iii + 333. $24.99 paper.  ISBN: 9780674062434.

Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment. By Samuel Farber. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2011. Pp.ix + 369. $24.00 paper. ISBN: 9781608461394.

Cuban Revelations: behind the Scenes in Havana, By Marc Frank, University Press of Florida, 2013. Pp. iii + 327. $29.95 cloth. ISBN: 9789813944651

Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms. By Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Pérez-López. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2013. Pp.xv + 295. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781588269043.

¿Quo vadis, Cuba? La incierta senda de las reformas . Edited by Pavel Vidal and José Antonio Alonso.  Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011. Pp. xvii + 453. $48.00 paper. ISBN: 9780268029830.

 When President Fidel Castro experienced a medical emergency on July 31, 2006, First Vice-President Raúl Castro assumed the role of Acting President, and was then declared President in February 2008 by the National Assembly. Hopes for change were high relative to the almost half century of Fidel’s presidency because Raúl was considered to be more pragmatic than Fidel.  During the first years of Raúl “acting” and then full Presidency, policy changes were modest, uncertain and hesitant.  However, after deliberation and some modest policy experimentation, the pace of reform accelerated in 2010.

In his first major speech in July of 2007, Raúl acknowledged the difficulties that the economy faced and the dimension of the reform effort that would be needed to overcome its problems. “To have more, we have to begin by producing more, with a sense of rationality and efficiency, so that we may reduce imports, especially of food products –that may be grown here– whose domestic production is still a long way away from meeting the needs of the population.”[1] This contrasted with the complacency of the last years of the Fidel era. Raúl emphasized the necessity of improving agriculture as well as industry and mentioned the possibility of increasing direct foreign investment.  He discussed “social indiscipline” and the expansion of the underground economy.  He assured citizens that the government was studying these issues and would soon introduce appropriate policies.  In subsequent speeches – shorter and less frequent than those of his elder brother – Raúl demonstrated increased pragmatism and decreased ideological rigidity. He also has shown an awareness of the need to break with some traditional Cuban economic institutions and policies.  Such change was ultimately necessary in his view for political reasons, to ensure the long-term viability of Cuba as an independent nation he stated:

We are facing unpleasant realities, but we do not close our eyes to them.  We are convinced that we need to break away from dogmas and assume firmly and confidently the ongoing upgrading of our economic model in order to set the foundations of the irreversibility of Cuban socialism and its development, which we know is the guarantee of our national sovereignty and independence.[2]

He did not view such changes as adoption of any sort of “capitalism,” but instead considered it an “up-dating” or “modernization” (actualización) of Cuban socialism.  However, Raúl’s concept of socialism reflected a change from the Fidelista view: it no longer implied an aspiration to equal outcomes.

Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights and opportunities, not salaries.  Equality does not mean egalitarianism.  This is, in the end, another form of exploitation, that of the exploitation of the responsible worker by the one who is not, or even worse, by the slothful.[3]

Raúl also emphasized that policy changes were to be introduced with deliberativeness and caution. This was certainly the approach prior to mid-2010.

The major reforms of 2010 began with the proposal to downsize employment in the state sector by 500,000 presumably redundant state employees by the end of March 2011 and 1.5 million by the end of 2012 with the hope that they would somehow be absorbed productively by an invigorated small enterprise sector. Then came the publication of the ambitious and comprehensive “Draft Guide for Economic and Social Reform” published in November 2010. The Guide was discussed broadly throughout Cuba, revised, and then approved at the Sixth Congress of Cuba’s Communist Party in April 2011. Since then, there has been a steady series of economic reforms introduced that are transforming the economy increasingly into a “mixed” economy with significant state, private, cooperative and joint venture sectors (the latter with foreign and state enterprises) together with a greater reliance on the market mechanism for the social control of economic activity.

Is this a “Revolution in the Revolution”, to hijack Regis Debray’s catchy book title?[4] The answer is “probably yes”.  Raúl’s reforms amount to a repudiation of almost a half century of the institutions and policies mainly borrowed from and/or inspired by the countries of the Soviet Bloc. The reforms also constitute a rejection of the impetuous and capricious policy experimentation of Fidel. Indeed, by 2014 Raúl already had been successful in forging his own legacy and emerging from the shadow of his elder brother.

Eight years after the accession of Raúl, it is time for an analysis and evaluation of his revised approach to economic management. Not surprisingly, a large number of books dedicated to this task have been published recently. The volumes reviewed here all focus directly on, or include lengthy analyses of the Raúlista reforms.[5]

The authors come from a variety of analytical traditions and disciplines. They include Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Pérez-López as well as the Spanish authors of the Vidal-Alonso volume whose approach is by and large mainstream economics, the more radical economist Al Campbell and also political scientists Samuel Farber and Jorge Domínguez. Included are analysts from the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy (CEEC) and other institutes of the University of Havana (in the Vidal-Alonso and the Domínguez et. al. volumes) many of whom have been moderate reformists since the early 1990s. About half of the analysts in Al Campbell’s volume have been working in the National Institute for Economic Studies (INIE), the main governmental economic think-tank, with the remainder from other branches of the government or its institutes. It is tempting to label these authors the “old guard” but some such as Miguel Figueras and José Luis Rodríguez can be said to have been moderate reformists as well, and all profess to be supporters of Raúl’s reforms.

These volumes all make important contributions to the analysis and understanding of Cuba’s overall economic situation. However, economic policies in a range of vital issue areas remain to be analyzed in greater depth as part of the process of the actualización of the Cuban economy.

One hopes that the next round of major publications on the Cuban economy will investigate some of these specific policy areas more profoundly than was possible in any of the general volumes reviewed here. Of particular relevance would be analyses of the policies toward agriculture, industry, energy, infrastructure, the service sector, small enterprise and the private sector, cooperatives, state enterprise, foreign investment and joint ventures, exchange rate and monetary issues, trade policy, policy towards foreign investment, social policies, health and education, labor issues, pensions demographic issues, cultural areas, etc. The work ahead is daunting.

What remains to be seen is how far economic reforms can proceed without any actualización of Cuba’s political system.

CONTINUE READING: Revolution in the Revolution, LARR, Ritter, October 2014

larr-cover[1]NOTES

[1] Cuban Communist Party, “Speech by the First Vice-President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, at the main celebration of the 54th Anniversary of the attack on Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Garrisons, at the Major General Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz Revolution Square in the city of Camagüey. July 26th, 2007, ‘Year 49 of the Revolution.,’” Diario Granma, July 27, 2007.

[2] Yohandry Fontana, “Key Address by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the State Council and the Council of Ministers and Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee,” Yohandryweb’s Noticias, April 4, 2009, http://yohandryweb.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/300/.

[3] President Raúl Castro, Speech at the Close of the Seventh Legislature of the national Assembly, 11 July 2008, http://www.ratb.org.uk/raul-castro/149-full-text-of-a-speech- president-raul-castro-at- the-first-ordinary-period-of-sessions-of-the-seventh-legislature-of-the-national-assembly. Accessed March 5, 2014

[4] Régis Debray, Revolution In The Revolution? Armed Struggle and Political Struggle In Latin America  (New York: Penguin Books Ltd),1968.

[5] Other books focusing on this theme include: Muricio A. Font and Carlos Riobo (Editors). Handbook of Contemporary Cuba: Economy, Politics, Civil Society and Globalization, Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2013; Claes Brundenius and Ricardo Torres Perez (Editors). No More free Lunch: Reflections on the Cuban Economic Reform process and Challenges for Transformation, Switzerland: Springer, 2013; and Alberto Gabriele (Editor). The Economy of Cuba after the VI Party Congress, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2012.

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INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES OF CUBA’S ECONOMIC-SOCIAL REFORMS: STATE AND MARKET ROLES, PROGRESS, HURDLES, COMPARISONS, MONITORING AND EFFECTS

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Arch Ritter

31See: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/08/cubas-economic-social-reforms-mesalago

The original essay is available here: Mesa-Lago-Economic and Social Reforms in Cuba-Brookings-14

In INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES OF CUBA’S ECONOMIC-SOCIAL REFORMS, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, distinguished service professor emeritus of economics and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh, evaluates the pros and cons of Cuba’s economic reform plans as they relate to institutional change.

Overall, Mesa-Lago concludes that institutional reforms in Cuba are advancing in a positive direction, albeit slowly. The most important of these so far has been the establishment of microcredit, bank accounts and wholesale markets for the non-state sector, and the sale of homes and establishment of inheritance rights for usufructuaries and home owners. However, key structural changes and components are still missing: integral price reform, elimination of monetary duality, a realistic exchange rate and bank system restructuring.

The author argues that if Cuba were to follow an adapted “socialist market” or mixed economy model, as in China and Vietnam –which have a private sector, open markets and foreign investment, combined with an indicative plan and decentralization of decision making — it would achieve much higher sustained economic growth. Furthermore, the state must permit self-employment in skilled, high-value-added jobs for university graduates, authorize medium-sized enterprises and cooperative ownership of businesses, allow true co-op independence, reduce excessive taxes on non-state workers, halt government measures that create uncertainty, and expand microcredit and wholesale markets. Mesa-Lago offers a variety of other policy recommendations that will help advance the process of institutional reform within the context of the ongoing reform process. However, time is of the essence as Raúl Castro has committed to retiring in February 2018, leaving him with only four years to complete the key institutional changes the nation urgently needs.

New Picture (3)

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WHICH WAY CUBA? THE 2013 STATUS OF POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Arch Ritter

Vegard Bye;  The full Report is available here:  NUPI Report: Which Way Cuba? This NUPI Report is the result of a project financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the purpose of studying and accompanying economic and institutional reform in Cuba. This Report consists of three papers taking stock of the political changes in Cuba by the end of 2013 (with some updates from early 2014). First, Vegard Bye attempts to summarize the status of the Cuban reform processes under president Raul Castro, with emphasis on the link between economic reforms and political transformations. One basic question is whether increasing economic pluralism may also lead to political pluralism, or whether there will rather be a re-concentration of both economic and political power. Second, Armando Chaguaceda looks at the social deterioration in Cuba. What is at stake are some of the most important achievements of the revolution in terms of health, education and social security. The author argues that these achievements have never been seen in a rights perspective. Lastly, Borghild Tønnessen-Krokan describes the polarized debate and issues that have blocked normalization and friendly coexistence, and analyzes constraints and benefits related to dialogue on human rights, security and other contentious issues both inside Cuba and between Cuba and the US in light of a recent thaw. In Annex 1 at the end of the Report, we reprint an English translation of the very visionary Manifest elaborated by our partner Laboratorio Casa Cuba: CUBA SOÑADA; CUBA POSSIBLE; CUBA FUTURA. This is the first proposal for a liberal democracy in Cuba proposed by a group of political thinkers operating within the Cuban political system, and thus tolerated by Government and Party. There is reason to believe that this document – with possible follow-up will become a benchmark for future debate about democratic political transformations in Cuba. New Picture (4) CONTENTS Foreword Which Way Cuba? The 2013 Status of Political Transformations By Vegard Bye

1. Introduction

2. Agricultural transformations and their implications

3. Widening space for employment-generating entrepreneurs?

4. Mariel: the new Cuban panacea?

5. The new cooperative sector

6. A dual state-private structure?

7. Social deteriorations and their possible impact

8. Cuban agents of change

9. International context Cuba towards Latin American normalcy?

10. Assessing the on-going transformations up against theoretical and empirical literature

11. The three scenarios

 Cuba: revisitando la Justicia Social en tiempos de reforma By Armando Chaguaceda

  1. Resumen
  2. Introducción
  3. Las perspectivas del análisis.
  4. El caso cubano
  5. Las reformas y sus impactos
  6. La (in)seguridad alimentaria y los ingresos personales
  7. El déficit habitacional y la marginalidad.
  8. “ é ” y “ á ”
  9. Reducciones en la calidad educacional
  10. Conclusiones

Build Walls or Open Doors? Prospects for Cuba Dialogue By Borghild Tønnessen-Krokan

  1. Introduction
  2. Methodological constraints
  3. Scope and definitions of dialogue and reconciliation
  4. Origins and dynamics of the conflict
  5. From Deadlock to Détente
  6. Conclusion

ANNEX I:

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Publication of the Papers from the 2013 Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Arch Ritter

 

The proceedings of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy’s 23rd Annual Meeting entitled  “Reforming Cuba?” (August 1–3, 2013) is now available. The presentations have now been published by ASCE  at http://www.ascecuba.org/.

The presentations are listed below and linked to their sources in the ASCE Web Site.

ASCE_logo_220

 Preface

Panorama de las reformas económico-sociales y sus efectos en Cuba, Carmelo Mesa-Lago

Crítica a las reformas socioeconómicas raulistas, 2006–2013, Rolando H. Castañeda

Nuevo tratamiento jurídico-penal a empresarios extranjeros: ¿parte de las reformas en Cuba?, René Gómez Manzano

Reformas en Cuba: ¿La última utopía?, Emilio Morales

Potentials and Pitfalls of Cuba’s Move Toward Non-Agricultural Cooperatives, Archibald R. M. Ritter

Possible Political Transformations in Cuba in the Light of Some Theoretical and Empirically Comparative Elements, Vegard Bye

Las reformas en Cuba: qué sigue, qué cambia, qué falta, Armando Chaguaceda and Marie Laure Geoffray

Cuba: ¿Hacia dónde van las “reformas”?, María C. Werlau

Resumen de las recomendaciones del panel sobre las medidas que debe adoptar Cuba para promover el crecimiento económico y nuevas oportunidades, Lorenzo L. Pérez

Immigration and Economics: Lessons for Policy, George J. Borjas

The Problem of Labor and the Construction of Socialism in Cuba: On Contradictions in the Reform of Cuba’s Regulations for Private Labor Cooperatives, Larry Catá Backer

Possible Electoral Systems in a Democratic Cuba, Daniel Buigas

The Legal Relations Between the U.S. and Cuba, Antonio R. Zamora

Cambios en la política migratoria del Gobierno cubano: ¿Nuevas reformas?, Laritza Diversent

The Venezuela Risks for PetroCaribe and Alba Countries, Gabriel Di Bella, Rafael Romeu and Andy Wolfe

Venezuela 2013: Situación y perspectivas socioeconómicas, ajustes insuficientes, Rolando H. Castañeda

Cuba: The Impact of Venezuela, Domingo Amuchástegui

Should the U.S. Lift the Cuban Embargo? Yes; It Already Has; and It Depends!, Roger R. Betancourt

Cuba External Debt and Finance in the Context of Limited Reforms, Luis R. Luis

Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Venezuela: A Tale of Dependence and Shock, Ernesto Hernández-Catá

Competitive Solidarity and the Political Economy of Invento, Roberto I. Armengol

The Fist of Lázaro is the Fist of His Generation: Lázaro Saavedra and New Cuban Art as Dissidence, Emily Snyder

La bipolaridad de la industria de la música cubana: La concepción del bien común y el aprovechamiento del mercado global, Jesse Friedman

Biohydrogen as an Alternative Energy Source for Cuba, Melissa Barona, Margarita Giraldo and Seth Marini

Cuba’s Prospects for a Military Oligarchy, Daniel I. Pedreira

Revolutions and their Aftermaths: Part One — Argentina’s Perón and Venezuela’s Chávez, Gary H. Maybarduk

Cuba’s Economic Policies: Growth, Development or Subsistence?, Jorge A. Sanguinetty

Cuba and Venezuela: Revolution and Reform, Silvia Pedraza and Carlos A. Romero Mercado

Mercado inmobiliario en Cuba: Una apertura a medias, Emilio Morales and Joseph Scarpaci

Estonia’s Post-Soviet Agricultural Reforms: Lessons for Cuba, Mario A. González-Corzo

Cuba Today: Walking New Roads? Roberto Veiga González

From Collision to Covenant: Challenges Faced by Cuba’s Future Leaders, Lenier González Mederos

Proyecto “DLíderes”, José Luis Leyva Cruz

Notes for the Cuban Transition, Antonio Rodiles and Alexis Jardines

Economistas y politólogos, blogueros y sociólogos: ¿Y quién habla de recursos naturales? Yociel Marrero Báez

Cambio cultural y actualización económica en Cuba: internet como espacio contencioso, Soren Triff

From Nada to Nauta: Internet Access and Cyber-Activism in A Changing Cuba, Ted A. Henken and Sjamme van de Voort

Technology Domestication, Cultural Public Sphere, and Popular Music in Contemporary Cuba, Nora Gámez Torres

Internet and Society in Cuba, Emily Parker

Poverty and the Effects on Aversive Social Control, Enrique S. Pumar

Cuba’s Long Tradition of Health Care Policies: Implications for Cuba and Other Nations, Rodolfo J. Stusser

A Century of Cuban Demographic Interactions and What They May Portend for the Future, Sergio Díaz-Briquets

The Rebirth of the Cuban Paladar: Is the Third Time the Charm? Ted A. Henken

Trabajo por cuenta propia en Cuba hoy: trabas y oportunidades, Karina Gálvez Chiú

Remesas de conocimiento, Juan Antonio Blanco

Diaspora Tourism: Performance and Impact of Nonresident Nationals on Cuba’s Tourism Sector, María Dolores Espino

The Path Taken by the Pharmaceutical Association of Cuba in Exile, Juan Luis Aguiar Muxella and Luis Ernesto Mejer Sarrá

Appendix A: About the Authors

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Clase de economía política para el Ministerio del Interior (MININT) en Cuba, por Juan Triana Cordovi,

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Arch Ritter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KwHP88wXfE

Juan Triana Cordovi, profesor del Centro de Estudios de la Economía Cubana en la Universidad de La Habana, se dirige en una conferencia magistral a los principales jefes del Ministerio del Interior (MININT) para hablarles de las necesidades de cambios profundos en la economía y la política del país

 Desde un enfoque favorable al gobierno cubano, el profesor Triana destaca muchísimos de los errores actuales y no tan actuales en la administración del país. Habla y reflexiona sobre la necesidad de que todos los cubanos tengan internet rápido en sus domicilios.

Habla de forma clara, sencilla y didáctica. Independientemente de su parcialidad política, por primera vez circula en Cuba de forma no censurada un análisis autocrítico del gobierno planteando soluciones

New Picture (9)Juan Triana Cordovi

New Picture (7) Jefes del Ministerio del Interior

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