Abstract Nine 1999

GLOBAL

DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

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Volume One Winter 1998-Spring 1999 Numbers 3-4.

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THE CUBAN ECONOMY HAS TURNED THE CORNER: THE QUESTION NOW IS WHERE IS IT GOING?

Al Campbell

Department of Economics

University of Utah

308 Business Classroom

Salt Lake City, Utah 84112

Published online: December 15, 2016

ABSTRACT

The 38 percent drop in gross domestic product during the early 1990s ended by late 1994. Following the impressive growth rate of 7.8 percent in 1996, few but the blindest opponents of the Cuban revolutionary process were still talking about economic collapse. Some of the more perspicacious opponents of the revolution—for example, Mesa-Lago (1994)—and several sympathizers of the revolution have begun to put forward the possibility that the present market reforms, and especially those that might follow, could result in the restoration of capitalism in Cuba. The central question now to be addressed is where is the Cuban economy and social structure going? This article addresses several issues relating to this question by: (1) reviewing the extent of the economic downturn and the beginning of a recovery; (2) looking at some of the economic experiments that began during the five years before the special period and had mixed results in the 1990s; and (3) comparing specific changes that occurred in the early 1990s to some later changes after 1994.