In this paper we provide a brief summary and evaluation of the main economic changes or 'reforms' undertaken by the Cuban government during the 1990's. The thrust of our argument is that the regime does not seem to be interested in reforms that lead to a transition to a market economy or even in the more limited goal of introducing widespread market mechanisms subservient to the needs of the communist party as in China. Instead, their policies seem directed at generating mechanisms for the appropriation of foreign exchange by members of the nomenclature while keeping most citizens deprived of independent access to wealth creation activities. We develop our argument by looking separately at 'reforms' in two type of markets: those in which transactions are self-enforcing and those which depend on the contract enforcement mechanisms or services usually associated with market augmenting government to enforce transactions.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Maryland, Department of Economics in its series Electronic Working Papers with number
99-008.
Length: Date of creation: Aug 1999 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:umd:umdeco:99-008
Contact details of provider: Postal: Department of Economics, University of Maryland, Tydings Hall, College Park, MD 20742 Web page: http://www.econ.umd.edu/
Order Information: Postal: Ms. Elizabeth Martinez, Department of Economics, University of Maryland, Tydings Hall, College Park, MD 20742 Email:
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Peter Murrell).