The dissolution of the socialist community has had severe repercussions on the Cuban economy. Prior to these momentous changes, the former Soviet Union and the socialist nations of Eastern Europe were Cuba’s economic lifeline. In 1989, the most recent year for which official data are available, the former Soviet Union and the socialist countries of […]

Environmental considerations were largely ignored in Cuba for almost 200 years. Only in the last decade, with the enactment of Law 33 on January 10, 1981, have environmental laws and regulations begun to play a very small role in guiding the development of natural resources exploitation and the ecology of the island. Law 33 is […]

La economía cubana confronta serios problemas económicos como resultado de diversos factores. Algunos de ellos son derivados de los cambios en el entorno internacional, pero la mayoría son resultados de problemas económicos internos de un sistema de economía dirigida. El proceso de transición de una economía es sumamente difícil pues se intenta, de manera simultánea, […]

Small businesses form the productive foundation of most mixed economies around the world. They provide an effective outlet for entrepreneurial initiative and ability, they fill market niches that are not profitable for larger firms, and they create jobs in a wide variety of occupations. The encouragement of small business growth has been a major concern […]

Note[ref]This paper is part of a larger chapter on the nature of work in Havana, and is greatly modified from Segre, R., Coyula, M. and Scarpaci, J. forthcoming. Havana: Two Sides of the Antillean Metropolis. New York and London: John Wiley and Sons. My thanks to Gilda de los Angeles Machín, Lawrence Grossman, and Jorge […]