Land Reforms in Cuba: First Empirical Assessment on Productivity Using Crop-Level Panel Data

Abstract

Land reforms implemented in Cuba since 2008 have aimed to increase agricultural production by distributing state-owned idle lands with land-use rights. The reforms restricted farmers with the rights from cultivating perennial and capital-intensive crops. Thus, the reforms are expected to affect the productivity of annual crops, excluding capital-intensive crops. We exploit the exogenous restrictions to empirically analyse the impact of the reforms on agricultural productivity using the difference-in-differences method based on crop-level panel data in the nonstate sector. Our findings indicate that the 2008 reform improved the productivity of annual crops, although we noted no significant impact of the 2012 reform.