Cuba Transition Project: Growing Economic and Social Disparities in Cuba: Impact and Recommendations for Change

摘要

Until 1989, Cuba had one of the most egalitarian economies and societies in Latin America, but the excessive emphasis on equality caused a lack of incentive to work, labor absenteeism, declining labor productivity, and erosion of the value of money. In the 1990s, the collapse of the USSR and the socialist camp, in combination with ill-conceived Cuban domestic economic policies, provoked the most severe socioeconomic crisis since the Cuban Revolution and prompted the implementation of moderate, but zigzagging market-oriented reforms. These changes resulted in significant increases in income inequality and other socioeconomic disparities, reversing many of the previous accomplishments of the Cuban regime. Although hard data on this issue are extremely difficult to obtain, this paper is based on a comprehensive collection of statistics, documents, surveys, scholarly articles, and interviews conducted by the author. The paper analyzes the impact of Cubas market reforms on economic and social disparities in 1990-2002, and it proposes measures to alleviate present and future disparities based on two scenarios.