Cuban Economics Essay -- Essays Papers

IntroductionModern Cuba is a region born of struggle. The transitionary movement that formed the modern day governing has remained in power for more than forty years. Indeed, the Cuban government is maybe one of the most stable governments in the region. This fact is made evening more evident by the recent fall of democracy in Haiti. However, the past ten years has seen a marked change in Cuban economic policy. Ostracized from the international community and faced with an embargo oblige by the United States, Cuba has turned to various sources of economic reform in order to survive in a global market.Background (1959 1991)During the first period after the revolution, Cubas primary economic base was base upon one hoidenish resource sugar (Packenham, pg. 137). Without a diversified bucolic or industrial base, Cuba was forced to become dependent on the further superpower that shared its political ideology, the Soviet Union. Indeed, Cuban trade with the Soviet Union rea ched a level of 69 percent in 1978, a level equivalent to the amount of trade conducted with the United States prior to the revolution (Packenham, pg. 139). As Cuba entered the 1980s, it was plagued with the same problems that had plagued it since its inception dependence on one agricultural produce and on one major trading partner. In the compute of Carmelo Mesa-Lago, most of the Cuban growth from 1960-1984 came as a result of the $40 billion in Soviet aid (Cuban Economy, pg. 187). lede up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban economy was in a terrible condition.In 1986, the economic growth in planned prices was and 1.4 percent compared to a planned rate of 3 percent. Labor productiveness fell 1.6 per... ...orida Press (1994).Packenham, Robert A., Cuba and the USSR since 1959 What Kind of Dependency, pgs. 135-165 in Louis Horowitz ed., Cuban collectivism (7th ed.), doing Publishers (1989).Perez-Lopez, Jorge F., Cubas Second Economy From Behind the Scenes to Center Stage, Transaction Publishers (1995).Theriot, Lawrence H., Cuba Faces the Economic Realities of the 1980s, pgs. 257-276 in Louis Horowitz ed., Cuban Communism (7th ed.), Transaction Publishers (1989).Watson, Hilbourne A., The Techno-Paradigm Shift, Globalization, and westward Hemisphere Integration Trends and Tendencies Mapping Issues in the Economic and Social evolution of the Caribbean, pgs. 59-88 in Joseph S. Tulchin, Andres Serbin, and Rafael Hernandez eds., Cuba and the Caribbean Regional Issues and Trends in the Post-Cold War Era, Scholarly Resources (1997).