Notes1 The scars of corruption, inherited from its colonial and republican past, as well as from its most recent socialist experience, have left a profound imprint in Cuba’s history. Widespread corruption severely eroded the legal and institutional fabric of the Republic since the early 1900s. The fight against corruption was among the most politically appealing […]

All societies and economic systems—industrialized or developing, market economy or socialist—must deal with environmental disruption. In market economies, environmental disruption has been the subject of considerable economic analysis. Environmental disruption is associated with “failure” of the market mechanism in the face of externalities and public goods. Much less attention has been paid to environmental disruption […]

Actions and neglectful policies of Cuba’s socialist government over nearly four decades will leave a legacy of environmental disruption that future governments will have to reckon with. We have argued elsewhere (Díaz-Briquets and Pérez-López, forthcoming) that the environmental disruptions that have occurred in socialist Cuba were not merely the result of the process of transformation […]

Notes[ref]The comments of Jorge Pérez-López and René Costales on an earlier draft of this paper are gratefully acknowledged.[/ref] Upon assuming power in 1959, Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government began to implement an aggressive national reforestation program. In large measure this program responded to a grave national concern given the country’s deforestation trend, but also dovetailed with […]