Explaining Fluctuations  in Cuba’s Participation Rate Ernesto Hernández-Cata Cuba’s labor force participation rate (the ratio of the labor force to the population of working age) has fluctuated widely over the past three decades The participation rate is important for policy makers because it measures the degree of labor utilization, and therefore the pressure of aggregate […]

Luis R. Luis The Cuban economy is being hit by two large shocks.  The first is an external shock from the pandemic which shut down tourism and sharpened the impact on Cuba of the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and of U.S. sanctions.  The second is a policy shock, the monetary reform or “ordenamiento monetario” […]

REMITTANCES AND SANCTIONS ON CUBA Luis R. Luis   Remittances from Cuban Americans are the lifeblood of both families in Cuba and its dollar-stretched government.  This is especially true with the pandemic decimating tourism and weakening dollar receipts from medical services hit by feeble economic conditions in countries with Cuban medical missions, Venezuela, Angola and […]

INFLATION IN CUBA 2010-2021* Luis R. Luis   The Cuban economy has experienced moderate inflation in recent years.  The only recent official statistic is the household consumption deflator in the national income accounts of the Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información which shows an average increase of 3.1% per year in 2010-2019 (ONEI 2016, 2020). […]

Monetary Bang and Inflation after the January 2021 Devaluation of the Cuban Peso Luis R. Luis   The Cuban government set January 1st 2021 as day zero when the convertible peso or CUC will merge into the CUP or Cuban peso which will devalue from 1 per dollar to a new rate of 24 per […]