IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v72y2012i01p104-132_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Road Not Taken: Pre-Revolutionary Cuban Living Standards in Comparative Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • WARD, MARIANNE
  • DEVEREUX, JOHN

Abstract

We examine Cuban GDP over time and across space. We find that Cuba was once a prosperous middle-income economy. On the eve of the revolution, incomes were 50 to 60 percent of European levels. They were among the highest in Latin America at about 30 percent of the United States. In relative terms, Cuba was richer earlier on. Income per capita during the 1920s was in striking distance of Western Europe and the Southern United States. After the revolution, Cuba slipped down the world income distribution. Current levels of income per capita appear below their pre-revolutionary peaks.

Suggested Citation

  • Ward, Marianne & Devereux, John, 2012. "The Road Not Taken: Pre-Revolutionary Cuban Living Standards in Comparative Perspective," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(1), pages 104-132, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:72:y:2012:i:01:p:104-132_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050711002452/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    2. Oshima, Harry T., 1961. "A New Estimate of the National Income and Product of Cuba in 1953," Food Research Institute Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, vol. 2(3), pages 1-16.
    3. Kirby Smith & Hugo Llorens, 1998. "Renaisssance and Decay: A Comparison of Socioeconomic Indicators in Pre-Castro and Current-Day Cuba," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 8.
    4. repec:rnp:ecopol:09111 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Angus Deaton & Alan Heston, 2010. "Understanding PPPs and PPP-Based National Accounts," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 1-35, October.
    6. M. d. MAR RUBIO & CÉSAR YÁÑEZ & MAURICIO FOLCHI & ALBERT CARRERAS, 2010. "Energy as an indicator of modernization in Latin America, 1890–1925," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(3), pages 769-804, August.
    7. Kohli, Ulrich, 2004. "Real GDP, real domestic income, and terms-of-trade changes," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 83-106, January.
    8. Blattman, Christopher & Hwang, Jason & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 2007. "Winners and losers in the commodity lottery: The impact of terms of trade growth and volatility in the Periphery 1870-1939," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 156-179, January.
    9. Anonymous, 1951. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 368-370, May.
    10. Robert J. Barro & Jose F. Ursua, 2008. "Macroeconomic Crises since 1870," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 39(1 (Spring), pages 255-350.
    11. Robert Summers & Alan Heston, 1991. "The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 327-368.
    12. Anonymous, 1951. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 784-788, November.
    13. Kyoji Fukao & Debin Ma & Tangjun Yuan, 2007. "Real Gdp In Pre‐War East Asia: A 1934–36 Benchmark Purchasing Power Parity Comparison With The U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 53(3), pages 503-537, September.
    14. Pierre Gutmann, 1981. "The Measurement Of Terms Of Trade Effects," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 27(4), pages 433-453, December.
    15. Alan Heston, 1973. "A Comparison Of Some Short‐Cut Methods Of Estimating Real Product Per Capita," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 19(1), pages 79-104, March.
    16. Anonymous, 1951. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 593-596, August.
    17. Luis Locay, 2009. "Cuban Socioeconomic Indicators before the Revolution: An International Comparison," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 19.
    18. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2007. "When Did Latin America Fall Behind?," NBER Chapters, in: The Decline of Latin American Economies: Growth, Institutions, and Crises, pages 15-58, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Ward, Marianne & Devereux, John, 2003. "Measuring British Decline: Direct Versus Long-Span Income Measures," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 826-851, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 2019. "Human Development in the Age of Globalisation," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 28450, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    2. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2015. "World Human Development: 1870–2007," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 220-247, June.
    3. Alfred G. Cuzán, 2018. "Evaluating Castros’ Cuba, Franco’s Spain and Pinochet’s Chile: Economic, Social, and Political Indicators," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 28.
    4. Benjamin Bridgman & Michael Maio & James A. Schmitz, 2012. "What ever happened to the Puerto Rican sugar manufacturing industry?," Staff Report 477, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    5. Geloso, Vincent & Pavlik, Jamie Bologna, 2021. "The Cuban revolution and infant mortality: A synthetic control approach," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, 2009. "Economic and Social Balance of 50 Years of Cuban Revolution," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 19.
    2. Michele Alacevich, 2010. "Development Agency or Bank? Vision and Strategy of the World Bank in the 50’s and 60’s," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    3. Daniel W Gingerich, 2014. "Yesterday’s heroes, today’s villains: Ideology, corruption, and democratic performance," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(2), pages 249-282, April.
    4. Veenstra, Joost, 2015. "Output growth in German manufacturing, 1907–1936. A reinterpretation of time-series evidence," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 38-49.
    5. Esteves, Rui & Kenny, Seán & Lennard, Jason, 2021. "The Aftermath of Sovereign Debt Crises: A Narrative Approach," Lund Papers in Economic History 221, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    6. Paul Pissot, 1960. "La productivité de l'agriculture turque," Économie rurale, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(1), pages 3-27.
    7. Emanuele Felice & Amedeo Lepore, 2017. "State intervention and economic growth in Southern Italy: the rise and fall of the ‘Cassa per il Mezzogiorno’ (1950–1986)," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(3), pages 319-341, April.
    8. Alacevich, Michele, 2008. "The World Bank's early reflections on development : a development institution or a bank?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4670, The World Bank.
    9. Karlsson Johannes & Matthiasson Thorolfur, 2015. "Tax Evasion, Tax Avoidance and The Influence of Special Interest Groups: Taxation in Iceland from 1930 to the Present," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2015(2), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Ballinger, Roy A., 1971. "A History of Sugar Marketing," Agricultural Economic Reports 307418, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    11. Kirby Smith & Hugo Llorens, 1998. "Renaisssance and Decay: A Comparison of Socioeconomic Indicators in Pre-Castro and Current-Day Cuba," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 8.
    12. Ballinger, Roy A., 1978. "A History of Sugar Marketing Through 1974," Agricultural Economic Reports 307665, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    13. Maximilian Grimm & Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2023. "Loose Monetary Policy and Financial Instability," NBER Working Papers 30958, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel, 2016. "No‐Bubble Condition: Model‐Free Tests in Housing Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1047-1091, May.
    15. Kyoji Fukao & Debin Ma & Tangjun Yuan, 2007. "Real Gdp In Pre‐War East Asia: A 1934–36 Benchmark Purchasing Power Parity Comparison With The U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 53(3), pages 503-537, September.
    16. Lionel Roger, 2018. "Blinded by the light? Heterogeneity in the luminosity-growth nexus and the African growth miracle," Discussion Papers 2018-04, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    17. Alan V. DEARDORFF, 2016. "What Do We (and Others) Mean by “The Terms of Trade”?," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 281-291, June.
    18. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Krishna Rao & Johannes Stroebel & Andreas Weber & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2021. "Climate Change and Long-Run Discount Rates: Evidence from Real Estate [Abrupt climate change]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(8), pages 3527-3571.
    19. Bjarni G. Einarsson & Kristófer Gunnlaugsson & Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson & Thórarinn G. Pétursson, 2015. "The long history of financial boom-bust cycles in Iceland - Part I: Financial crises," Economics wp68, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    20. Carmen M. Reinhart, 2022. "From Health Crisis to Financial Distress," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 70(1), pages 4-31, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:72:y:2012:i:01:p:104-132_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.