LA ECONOMÍA CUBANA EN LA GLOBALIZACIÓN MUNDIAL: ¿TRANSICIÓN CON RUMBO?

Beginning with a review of Cuba's economic situation, this study analyzes some aspects relevant to the Island's new insertion into the world economy in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century. It proposes that the impact of external factors during the last decade of the 20th century sharpened its structural economic problems, obliging the country to take decisions on economic policy that led inevitably to an economic and institutional transition during that period. It then examines how the transformation of productive and institutional structures gradually occurred, including property rights, with severe inefficiencies, political fluctuations, and with considerable social costs and high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates in unfavorable external conditions due to the U.S. embargo. Finally, it concludes that Cuba is undoubtedly an economy in transition with large ambiguities regarding the route it will have to follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]