Waiting for Godot: Cuba's stalled reforms and continuing economic crisis

Problems of Post-Communism

Volumn 48, Issue 6, 2001, Pages 43-55

  Pérez López, Jorge F ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0035541555     PISSN: 10758216     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10758216.2001.11655959     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. See, for example, El Nuevo Herald (April 7, 2000); ibid.(April 13, 2000); Miami Herald (June 23, 2000); El Nuevo Herald (July 15, 2000).
2. See, for example, El Nuevo Herald (April 7, 2000); ibid.(April 13, 2000); Miami Herald (June 23, 2000); El Nuevo Herald (July 15, 2000).
3. See, for example, El Nuevo Herald (April 7, 2000); ibid.(April 13, 2000); Miami Herald (June 23, 2000); El Nuevo Herald (July 15, 2000).
4. See, for example, El Nuevo Herald (April 7, 2000); ibid.(April 13, 2000); Miami Herald (June 23, 2000); El Nuevo Herald (July 15, 2000).
5. El Nuevo Herald (July 31, 2000).
6. The socialist countries used the Material Product System (MPS), while Western countries used the so-called System of National Accounts (SNA). The main indicators of aggregate economic activity under the MPS are the global social product (GSP) and the gross material product (GMP), while those of the SNA are the gross national product (GNP) and the gross domestic product (GDP).
7. Jorge F. Pérez-López, Cuba's Second Economy (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995), p. 124.
8. Jorge F. Pérez-López, "Swimming Against the Tide: Implications for Cuba of Soviet and Eastern European Reforms in Foreign Economic Relations," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 33, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 136-38.
9. Based on statistics reported in Jorge F. Pérez-López, The Economics of Cuban Sugar (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991), pp. 140-41.
10. Jorge F. Pérez-López, "Cuban Oil Re-Exports: Significance and Pros-pects," Energy Journal 8 (1987): 1.
11. Ernesto Meléndez Bachs, "Relaciones económicas de Cuba con el CAME" (Cuban Economic Relations with CMEA), America Latina (Moscow), no. 7 (1987): 95-96.
12. José Luis Rodríguez, "Las relaciones económicas entre Cuba y los países socialistas: Situación actual y perspectivas" (Economic Relations Between Cuba and the Socialist States: Situation and Prospects), mimeo, 1989.
13. A. Bekarevich, "Cuba y el CAME: El camino de la integración" (Cuba and CMEA: The Road to Integration), in Cuba: 25 años de construcción del socialismo (Cuba: Twenty-five Years of Building Socialism) (Moscow: Redacción Ciencias Sociales Contemporáneas, 1986), p. 98.
14. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, "The Economic Effects on Cuba of the Downfall of Socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe," in Cuba After the Cold War, ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), p. 148.
15. The Soviet flow of resources levels are from Mesa-Lago. The GDP estimates at constant prices of 1981 (20,385 million pesos in 1986, 19,934 million pesos in 1987, 20,664 million pesos in 1998, 20,960 million pesos in 1989, and 20,349 million pesos in 1990) are from Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe, La economía cubana: Reformas estructurales y desempeño en los noventa (The Cuba Economy: Structural Reforms and Performance in the 1990s), rev. ed. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000), Statistical Appendix. For purposes of calculating the ratio, Mesa-Lago's resource flow estimates have been converted from U.S. dollars to pesos at the official exchange rate of 1 peso = 1 U.S. dollar, although it is well established that this exchange rate far overestimates the purchasing power of the peso.
16. Calculated from data on aggregate net resource flows and GDP in dollars contained in World Bank, World Development Report, 1992 (Washington: Oxford University Press, 1992), Appendix, Tables 1 and 23.
17. Fidel Castro, "Speech at the Opening Session of the IV Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, on October 10, 1991," in Island in the Storm, ed. Gail Reed (Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press, 1992), p. 40.
18. For a description and evaluation of the Cuban economic strategy of the early 1990s, see the contributions to Cuba at a Crossroads: Politics and Economics after the Fourth Party Congress, ed. Jorge Pérez-López (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994).
19. These points have been extracted from Jorge F. Pérez-López, "Cuba's Socialist Economy toward the Mid-1990s," Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 11, no. 2 (June 1995): 129-132.
20. For description and analysis of the measures see Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Are Economic Reforms Propelling Cuba to the Market? (Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, University of Miami, 1994) and Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, "Cuba's Economic Reforms: An Overview," in Perspectives on Cuban Economic Reforms, ed. Jorge Pérez-López and Matías Travieso-Díaz (Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Latin American Studies Press, 1998).
21. For description and analysis of the measures see Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Are Economic Reforms Propelling Cuba to the Market? (Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, University of Miami, 1994) and Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, "Cuba's Economic Reforms: An Overview," in Perspectives on Cuban Economic Reforms, ed. Jorge Pérez-López and Matías Travieso-Díaz (Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Latin American Studies Press, 1998).
22. "Decreto-ley No. 140," Gaceta Oficial (August 13, 1993) and " Informa Banco Nacional de Cuba sobre uso de las monedas libremente convertibles" (Cuban National Bank Informs on the Use of Convertible Currencies), Trabajadores (August 15, 1993).
23. "Decreto-ley No. 140," Gaceta Oficial (August 13, 1993) and " Informa Banco Nacional de Cuba sobre uso de las monedas libremente convertibles" (Cuban National Bank Informs on the Use of Convertible Currencies), Trabajadores (August 15, 1993).
24. "Decreto Ley No. 149 - Sobre confiscación de bienes e ingresos obtenidos mediante eriquecimiento indebido," Gaceta Oficial (May 4, 1994).
25. El Nuevo Herald (January 25, 1999) and (January 30, 1999). Chief Prosecutor Juan Escalona announced that prostitutes who had been rounded up would be subject to a "process of social rehabilitation in internment centers, as preventive measures taken earlier had not been successful." See El Nuevo Herald (February 7, 1999).
26. El Nuevo Herald (January 25, 1999) and (January 30, 1999). Chief Prosecutor Juan Escalona announced that prostitutes who had been rounded up would be subject to a "process of social rehabilitation in internment centers, as preventive measures taken earlier had not been successful." See El Nuevo Herald (February 7, 1999).
27. El Nuevo Herald (February 9, 1999).
28. Granma Electronic Edition (March 2, 1999), available at www.granma.cubaweb.cu.
29. "Decreto-ley No. 141 - Sobre el ejercicio del trabajo por cuenta propia," Gaceta Oficial (September 8, 1993). The actual list of occupations was contained in a joint resolution issued by the State Committee on Labor and Social Security and the State Committee on Finance. See " Resolución Conjunta No. 1 CETSS-CEF," Gaceta Oficial (September 8, 1999).
30. "Decreto-ley No. 141 - Sobre el ejercicio del trabajo por cuenta propia," Gaceta Oficial (September 8, 1993). The actual list of occupations was contained in a joint resolution issued by the State Committee on Labor and Social Security and the State Committee on Finance. See " Resolución Conjunta No. 1 CETSS-CEF," Gaceta Oficial (September 8, 1999).
31. Granma (October 22, 1993).
32. Benjamin Smith, "The Self-Employed in Cuba: A Street-Level View," Cuba in Transition, vol. 9 (Washington: Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, 1999), p. 50.
33. "Decreto-ley No. 142 - Sobre las Unidades Básicas de Producción Cooperativa," Gaceta Oficial (September 21, 1993).
34. "Decreto No. 191 - Sobre el Mercado Agropecuario," Gaceta Oficial (September 20, 1994).
35. "Ley No. 73 - Del sistema tributario," Gaceta Oficial (August 5, 1994).
36. Granma International Electronic Edition, no. 25 (1997) at www.granma.cubaweb.cu.
37. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, "Cuba's Economic Counter-Reform (Rectificación): Causes, Policies and Effects," Journal of Communist Studies 5, no. 4 (December 1989): 98.
38. For a very well documented description and analysis of this repressive maneuver by the Cuban government, see Maurizio Giuliano, El Caso CEA: Intelectuales e Inquisidores en Cuba (The Case of CEA: Intellectuals and Inquisitors) (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1998). For a summary of one of the reform proposals by Cuban academics that were the subject of Raúl Castro's attack, see Julio Carranza Valdés, Luis Gutiérrez Urdaneta, and Pedro Monreal González, "Reforming the Cuban Economy: A Proposal," in Perspectives on Cuban Economic Reforms, ed. Jorge Pérez-López and Matías Travieso-Díaz (Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Latin American Studies Press, 1998).
39. For a very well documented description and analysis of this repressive maneuver by the Cuban government, see Maurizio Giuliano, El Caso CEA: Intelectuales e Inquisidores en Cuba (The Case of CEA: Intellectuals and Inquisitors) (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1998). For a summary of one of the reform proposals by Cuban academics that were the subject of Raúl Castro's attack, see Julio Carranza Valdés, Luis Gutiérrez Urdaneta, and Pedro Monreal González, "Reforming the Cuban Economy: A Proposal," in Perspectives on Cuban Economic Reforms, ed. Jorge Pérez-López and Matías Travieso-Díaz (Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Latin American Studies Press, 1998).
40. Ana Julia Jatar-Hausmann, The Cuban Way: Capitalism, Communism, and Confrontation (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1999), p. 99.
41. El Nuevo Herald (May 6, 2000).
42. "Government confirms intention to purchase all unsold condominium units," Economic Eye on Cuba (May 22-28, 2000), at www.cubatrade.org/eyeon2000h.html.
43. "Free trade zones criticized," Economic Eye on Cuba (February 21-27, 2000), at www.cubatrade.org/eyeon2000c.html.
44. El Nuevo Herald (May 3, 2000).
45. Granma International Digital Edition (January 5, 2000).
46. Gross revenue from tourism includes, among other things, the value of imported goods and services associated with consumption by tourists; the foreign exchange cost of capital investment; payments that leave Cuba in the form of profits, interest payments, royalties, management fees, payments to travel agents and so on; the cost of advertising and promoting travel to Cuba, the overseas cost of training service personnel; and aviation receipts from airlines and airport fees.
47. The sectoral contributions to GDP in 1998 were as follows: agriculture, hunting, forestr,y and fishing, 6.9 percent; mining and quarrying, 1.2 percent; manufacturing, 29 percent; electricity, gas, and water, 3.1 percent; construction, 4.0 percent; commerce, restaurants, and hotels, 20.9 percent; transportation, warehousing, and communications, 5.8 percent; finance, real estate, and business services, 4.0 percent; and community social and personal services, 25.0 percent. Calculated from official statistics in Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas, Cuba en cifras 1998 (Cuba in Figures) (Havana, 1999), p. 30.