Cuba under Raul Castro is undertaking economic reforms, allowing some private small business, shifting labor from the state to the private sector, freeing selected retail prices, improving management of state enterprises and allowing purchase and sale of residential housing and cars among private parties.  In this note I gauge Cuba’s progress in economic reforms using […]

Three well-known economists of the Cuban diaspora with different backgrounds and perspectives (Carmelo Mesa-Lago, university professor; Ernesto Hernández-Catá, former IMF official; and Luis Luis, private financier)[i] agree that Cuba has received considerable Venezuelan assistance, as high as 20% of Cuban GDP.  As Luis indicates this support is fundamental to Cuba that faces severe external liquidity and solvency […]

In October 2010 Cuba and Venezuela signed the Integral Cooperation Agreement (Convenio Integral de Cooperación) under which Venezuela would provide a variety of subsidies and transfers to Cuba, including a large subsidy on oil imports. Cuba also would send medical personnel, teachers, and military and security advisers to Venezuela and (on much smaller scale) to […]