Scott Brown and Lorenzo Pérez[1]   Introduction   In recent years, the Cuban government has introduced a number of economic reforms, intended to improve economic performance and increase the scope for small-scale private sector activity.  These appear to have been motivated in by the low rate of national investment, limited productivity growth, and poor […]

In the past several years, government policies have resulted in a dramatic change in the composition of Cuba’s labor force.   Employment in the state sector plunged by 587 thousand, In the period 2011-2014, about 16% of the state workforce. (See rightmost column of Table 1 and the figure at the end of the paper). […]

An Update of Cuba’s Balance of Payments[1] Ernesto Hernández-Catá   Cuba’s balance of payments has been subject to very long publication delays. In its latest annual report, Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information provided figures on current account transactions only through 2012;[2] and data for capital movements have not published for ages. The table […]

The Cuban National Statistical Office (ONEI) has recently released data for the fiscal position of the general government, which includes the central, provincial and municipal governments but not the state enterprises. Developments in 2014 Developments in 2014 suggest a moderate relaxation of fiscal policy albeit still within the basic framework of fiscal restraint in place […]

Cuba is avoiding severe economic damage from the economic turmoil in its close ally Venezuela.  Officials report an increase in annualized real GDP of 4.7% in the first half of 2015 after meager expansion of 1.3% in the previous year.[1]  The expansion is broadly based across productive sectors particularly industry,  agriculture and commerce.  This at […]