Suggested Books
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Cambios en Cuba: Pocos, Tardios y Limitados
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February 2011
Oscar Espinosa Chepe
Comments and proposals about the Social and Economic Realignment Project of the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba y other analysis of the cuban reality.
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Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism
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Muhammad Yunus
PublicAffairs (2007)
Creating a World Without Poverty tells the stories of some of the earliest examples of social businesses, including Yunus's own Grameen Bank. It reveals the next phase in a hopeful economic and social revolution that is already under way—and in the worldwide effort to eliminate poverty by unleashing the productive energy of every human being. -
Cuba's Aborted Reform: Socioeconomic Effects, International Comparisons, and Transition Policies
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Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Perez-Lopez
University Press of Florida (2005)
Focusing on economic and social policies and performance during the “Special Period in Time of Peace” (1990-2004), the authors draw on an impressive array of statistics (synthesized in 28 tables) to show that in 2005 Cuba has yet to return to economic levels of the late 1980s, and the access and quality of many of the highly touted social services--education, health care, social security, housing--also have not been restored to the levels achieved prior to the economic crisis triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, they argue, poverty has expanded and unequal access to foreign remittances combined with expanding income differences have exacerbated social inequalities and widened the consumption gap between those with access to hard currency and those without. The authors demonstrate that governmental concerns about a strengthening private sector resulting in loss of political control finally prompted the Cuban leadership to prioritize political over economic ends. It aborted the modest market-oriented reforms of 1993-1996 and actually reversed them in 2003-2004, recentralized the economy, drastically reduced the limited spaces for private economic activity, exerted increasing control over hard currency, prohibited the circulation of the dollar, and stepped up repressive measures on peaceful dissidents. Centralized economic control has been fully restored, even though it will undoubtedly result in further deterioration of economic conditions and declining standards of living. -
The Cuban Economy at the Start of the Twenty-First Century
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Jorge I. Dominguez
Harvard University Press (2005)
How can Cuba address the challenges of economic development and transformation that have bedeviled so many Latin American and Eastern European countries? For the Cuban and American social scientists and policy experts writing in this timely and provocative volume, the answer lies in examining Cuba's development trajectory by delving into issues ranging from the political economy of reform to their impact on specific sectors including export development, foreign direct investment, and U.S.-Cuba trade. -
Transforming Socialist Economies: Lessons from Cuba and Beyond
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Shahid Burki and Daniel Erikson
Palgrave Macmillan (2005)
This work argues that countries with centrally-planned economies can pursue divergent paths towards market liberalization. The book reviews the reform processes of China, the Central Asian Republics, Eastern Europe, Russia, Vietnam, and the role of the international financial institutions, and draws lessons for Cuba, a country on the verge of wider economic transformation. -
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
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Muhammad Yunus
PublicAffairs (2003)
Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing: a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone. Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business. Muhammad Yunus was born in Bangladesh and earned his Ph.D. in economics in the United States at Vanderbilt University, where he was deeply influenced by the civil rights movement. He still lives in Bangladesh, and travels widely around the world on behalf of Grameen Bank and the concept of micro-credit. Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, a seaport in Bangladesh. The third of fourteen children, five of whom died in infancy, he was educated at Dhaka University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. In 1972 he became the head of the economics department at Chittagong University. He is the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank. -
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
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Hernando de Soto
Basic Books (2003)
Information and Resources
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Economy Experts
The following is a list of recognized Cuba experts who are not affiliated with the Cuba Study Group -
The Enterprise Funds Association
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Central Bank of Cuba
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Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy
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Centro de Estudios de la Economia Cubana
Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy at the University of Havana.
Articles, Opinions and Papers
May 2012
Cuba drags feet on foreign investment
May 16, 2012
Marc Frank, Reuters
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's reform plans to attract more overseas investment are off to a slow start as the government focuses more on regulating existing foreign joint ventures than encouraging new ones, businessmen and diplomats say.
April 2012
MiamiHerald.com
Entrepreneurship is no longer illegal in Cuba, but business owners on the island still face difficulties
The Washington Post
HAVANA - Cuban exports of goods and services generated $9 billion in income in 2011, a 20 percent increase over the previous year, a high-ranking government official said Tuesday.
March 2012
February 2012
Victoria Burnett, The New York Times
HAVANA — As fixer-uppers go, Carmen Martínez’s derelict shotgun house is no cakewalk. The living-room roof collapsed 15 years ago, and the porch soon followed suit, leaving two teetering columns with nothing to hold up. The bathroom is a squalid privy, and the kitchen consists of a sink with no taps and two oil drums full of water.
January 2012
John Paul Rathbone, Financial Times
President Raúl Castro wants the recent liberalisation of small businesses to bolster Cuba’s sagging economy and absorb the 1m state workers he says will eventually be laid off.
As Raul Castro's Communists hold conference to promote reforms, Cubans fear it is all too slow
January 30, 2012
Georgia Birch, The Telegraph
As Raul Castro calls a rare National Conference of Cuba's Communist Party, an army of entrepreneurs is desperate to do more business. But does their energy outstrip the slow pace of reform?
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Links
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Cuban Entrepreneurs: From Necessary Evil to Strategic Necessity
What a recent visit to Cuba reveals about that country’s past, present, and future. -
Cuba: Fundamental Telecommunications Plan
A study of Cuba's current telecommunications infrastructure and the cost of repairing it in a post-transition atmosphere. -
Cuban Computer Networks and their Impact
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Cuban Telecommunication Infrastructure and Investment
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Desarticular el monopolio de la centralización estatal
An interview with Pavel Vidal Alejandro in Epsacio Laical -
Direct Foreign Investment in Post-Castro Cuba
This paper examines Cuba’s recent experience in attracting FDI,
summarizes some of the empirical work that has been done regarding the
link between well-functioning social institutions and FDI and draws lessons
for a future Cuban government pursuing transition to a market economy.
General policy recommendations are also developed. -
Growing Economic and Social Disparities: Impact and Recommendations for Change
This paper analyzes the impact of Cuba’s market reforms on economic
and social disparities in 1990-2002, and it proposes measures to
alleviate present and future disparities based on two scenarios. -
Growth and Human Development in Cuba's Transition
This paper examines how to convert Cuba's human resources into enhanced economic growth while maintaining its past advantage in human development in a transition to democracy. -
Privatization, Reconstruction and Socio-Economic Development in Post-Castro Cuba
This essay focuses on several key themes and their mutual interrelation
in the societal process known as transition. Its main intent is to apply
the generalizations gathered from the lessons of Central and Eastern
European and Baltic countries and the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) to the specific conditions most likely to obtain in Cuba in the
post-Castro period. -
Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Assoc. for the Study of the Cuban Economy
Reports from ASCE's annual proceedings from 1991 to 2004. -
Raulonomics: Touch Diagnosis and Partial Prescriptions in Raul Castro's Economic Policies
A paper published by Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute in July of 2009. -
The Political Economy of the Internet in Cuba
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The Cuban Economy: Recent Trends
A July 2011 report by the Wilson Center authored by Rafael Romeu, Jorge Perez-Lopez and Carmelo Mesa-Lago and edited by Jose Raul Perales.