This post takes an initial look at economic implications of the new measures announced by President Obama on December 17, 2014.  The author estimates the one-year positive impact of the measures at 0.5% to 0.6% of Cuba’s GDP with the second year impact somewhat higher because of multiplier effects.[1]  The impact although significant will by […]

Cuba’s labor participation rate, the ratio of the labor force to the population of working age, has fluctuated widely over the past 2 1/2 decades. From 1989 to 1994 the rate fell abruptly as the economy went into its post-Soviet depression (see figure below). It bottomed out in 1995-96 as the economy began to recover; […]

During a session of the Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy in August 2014, Armando Linde asked a very important question. If Cuba’s workforce is stagnant, if the country’s investment to GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the world, and if total factor productivity growth has been […]