Income Inequality in Today’s Cuba - Field Research on the Cuban People’s Quality of Life and Income Structure (original) (raw)

The Road Not Taken: Pre-Revolutionary Cuban Living Standards in Comparative Perspective

The Journal of Economic History, 2012

We examine Cuban GDP over time and across space. We find that Cuba was once a prosperous middle-income economy. On the eve of the revolution, incomes were 50 to 60 percent of European levels. They were among the highest in Latin America at about 30 percent of the United States. In relative terms, Cuba was richer earlier on. Income per capita during the 1920s was in striking distance of Western Europe and the Southern United States. After the revolution, Cuba slipped down the world income distribution. Current levels of income per capita appear below their pre-revolutionary peaks.

Pay Inequality in Cuba during the Special Period

This paper analyzes the evolution of pay inequality in Cuba from the early 1990s through 2004 during what was known as the "Special Period in Times of Peace" and after. We measured pay inequality across sectors and regions using the between-groups component of Theil's T statistic, and we mapped the changing components of that statistic in order to provide a compact summary of structural change in Cuba. This method has helped us to observe the transition of the Cuban economy from one based fundamentally on sugar to one based largely on services, especially tourism, but also others with greater growth potential, such as information technology, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Regionally, we have observed that a main dividing line between "winners" and "losers" is the presence of tourism and that the recent increase of regional pay inequality is associated primarily with the relative position of Havana's city and the province of Matanzas. NB: Unless otherwise noted all quotations are translations by the authors.

Pay Inequality in Cuba: the Special Period and After

2006

This paper analyzes the evolution of pay inequality in Cuba from the early 1990s through 2004, during what was known as the "Special Period in Times of Peace" and after. We measure pay inequality across sectors and regions, using the between-groups component of Theil's T statistic, and we map the changing components of that statistic in order to provide a compact summary of structural change in Cuba. This method helps us to observe the transition of the Cuban economy from one based fundamentally on sugar to one based largely on services, especially tourism, but also others with greater growth potential, such as information technology, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Regionally, we observe that a main dividing line between winners and losers is the presence of tourist attractions: the recent increase of regional pay inequality is associated primarily with changing incomes in the city of Havana and the province of Matanzas..

Wealth distribution in Cuba (2006–2014): a first assessment using microdata1

Cambridge Journal of Economics

Recently, a trend towards increasing inequality has been detected in both developed and developing countries. Most of these studies have been focusing on formal monetary variables, since capitalism is a socioeconomic system where monetary relations play a paramount role. However, the distribution of non-monetary assets is also very important, especially so in less developed countries. This paper applies a PCA methodology to analyse the distribution of non-monetary wealth in Cuba, a socialist country where the role of monetary relations is relatively minor. Utilizing the MICS-UNICEF 'microdata', the paper provides for the first time an estimation of wealth distribution for three years (2006, 2011, 2014), by area and region. The main results show a non-monotonic wealth inequality reduction. The initial worsening (2006-11) is more than counterbalanced by a recent improvement .

Socioeconomic position and the health gradient in Cuba: dimensions and mechanisms

BMC Public Health, 2020

Background To throw light on the under-researched association between socioeconomic position (SEP) and health in Cuba, this study examined SEP gradients in health and their underlying mechanisms among urban Cuban adults aged 18–65. Methods By applying linear regressions to data from the 2010 National Survey on Risk Factors and Chronic Diseases, the analysis explored the SEP-health gradient along three SEP dimensions − education, occupation, and skin colour − using ten health measures: self-reported health (SRH), general and abdominal obesity, hypertension, high glucose, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, and cumulative risk factors. Regressions also included behaviours and health-related risk perceptions (tobacco and alcohol consumption, diet, physical activity, and risk-related behaviours). It thus investigated the SEP-health gradient and its underlying mechanisms via both behaviours and health-related risk perception...

The Paradox of Good Health and Poverty: Assessing Cuban Health Outcomes Under Castro

In spite of being poor and lacking in economic opportunities, the population of Cuba enjoyed significant improvements in health outcomes under the Castro regime. Many have praised the ability of the regime to overcome the barriers of poverty and economic stagnation in order to improve health outcomes. Many have also argued that efficient features of Cuba's health policy should be imported regardless of political considerations. In this paper, we argue that these improvements are probably overestimated, but that they are real nonetheless. We also argue that some of these improvements were an integral part of health policy and could only have been realized by the use of extremely coercive institutions. While efficient at fighting certain types of diseases, coercive institutions are generally unable to generate economic growth. On the other hand, the poverty such coercive institutions engender may have actually helped improve health outcomes, providing us with a false impression of the efficacy of the health care system in Cuba.

Patterns of Economic Inequality in Monetary and Non-Monetary Assets in Cuba

Cuba: Past and Present, 2020

The pursuit of social justice and equity has been being a pivotal political banner of the Cuban Revolution since the 1959, and it remains an objective declared by the government also in the current stage officially addressed to updating the Cuban development model. To this end, since the earlier day of Revolution the Cuban government has implemented policies aimed at both contrasting concentration of private property and personal incomes and guaranteeing everybody's access to essential goods and services in some key

Income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean: evidence from household surveys

One of the most prominent characteristics of the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is its high degree of inequality. Few economic and social variables are so associated to LAC as inequality is. Living standards markedly vary among LAC citizens, not only across countries, but also especially within countries. Moreover, many of these gaps do not seem to be narrowing over time. This paper shows evidence on inequality in the income distribution based on a sample of household surveys for 20 LAC countries at three points in time over the period 1989-2001. In this paper we introduce the sample of household surveys (section 2), present a large set of inequality measures for the distribution of household income adjusted for demographics (section 3), report the inequality patterns for the LAC countries based on our dataset and the existing literature (section 4), and report results for two other dimensions of the income distribution: aggregate welfare and polarization (section 5). Comparison with other