Understanding a Cuban Transition

The 2014-15 US initiatives in revising its policy toward Cuba after more than a half half century provides a natural experiment in transition from a command economy to something approaching a market-driven system. In many ways it is a cleaner experiment than experienced in Eastern Europe, Vietnam and other transition stories because of the long duration of an entrenched command system, tight constraints on civil society, and relatively few problems with confounding variables. This paper represents a primer on the political economy of Cuba in retrospect and prospect. It. traces the country's economic and financial history from Spanish rule to the present, identifies the nature of the policy shocks to which it is now exposed, and considers the possible outcomes and their pacing.