Students of recent Cuban economic history will be familiar with the crisis the country underwent after the collapse of the Soviet Union and of the system of economic relationships between socialist countries known as COMECON (Canler, 2001). Almost overnight, Cuba lost the international economic relationships that underpinned its domestic economy. Among the resulting painful consequences […]
Which Transition? A Contrarian Look at Post-Castro Cuba
As professionals studying Cuba, probably the first question we are asked by people with only a faint acquaintance with the country is what will happen after Fidel Castro passes away. For years this observer’s pat answer has been that it depends on when he dies and how he dies. Does it happen tomorrow or in […]
The Miracle of the Cuban Economy in the 1990s
It seems that about every thirty years Cuba’s economy has been buffeted by an economic cataclysm. The War of Independence in the late 1890s devastated the economy and decimated its population. The Great Depression affected Cuba deeply in the 1930s. The Socialist Revolution created massive economic upheaval in the 1960s. Then the dissolution of the […]