Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T16:23:05.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2012

MARIANNE WARD  and
JOHN DEVEREUX
MARIANNE WARD*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21210. E-mail: [email protected].
JOHN DEVEREUX*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, Queens College, CUNY, Flushing, NY 11367. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , 12 March 2012 , pp. 104 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alienes Urosa, Julián. Características Fundamentales de la Economía Cubana. Havana: Banco Nacional de Cuba, 1950.Google Scholar
Baklanoff, Eric N. “Cuba on the Eve of the Socialist Transition: A Reassessment of the Backwardness-Stagnation Thesis.” Cuba in Transition. 8, Papers and Proceeds of ASCE, 1998.Google Scholar
Baklanoff, Eric N.“A Bountiful Legacy: U.S. Investment and Economic Diversification in Cuba During the 1950s.” Cuba in Transition 19, Papers and Proceeds of ASCE, 2009.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert. J., and Jose, F. Ursua. “Macroeconomic Crises Since 1870.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Spring 2008): 255–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birnberg, Thomas, and Resnick, Stephen. Colonial Development: An Econometric Study. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Christopher, Blattman, Hwang, Jason, and Jeffrey, G. Williamson. “Winners and Losers in the Commodity Lottery: The Impact of Terms of Trade Growth and Volatility in the Periphery, 1870–1939.” Journal of Development Economics 82, no. 1 (2007): 156–79.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, Stanley N.“Real Income Levels in Latin America.” Review of Income and Wealth 14, no. 2 (1968): 113–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brundenius, Claes. Revolutionary Cuba: The Challenge of Economic Growth with Equity. Westview Special Studies on Latin America and the Caribbean. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Clark, Colin. The Conditions of Economic Progress, 3rd edition. London: Macmillan, 1957.Google Scholar
Coatsworth, John. “Economic and Institutional Trajectories in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.” In Latin America and the World Economy Since 1800, edited by Coatsworth, John and Taylor, Alan, 23–54. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Deaton, Angus, and Heston, Alan. “Understanding PPPs and PPP-Based National Accounts.” American Economics Journal: Macroeconomics 2, no. 4 (2010): 1–35.Google Scholar
Dye, Alan. Cuban Sugar in the Age of Mass Production: Technology and the Economics of the Sugar Central, 1899–1929. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). “A Measurement of Price Levels and the Purchasing Power of Currencies in Latin America, 1960–1962.” Economic Bulletin for Latin America 8 (1963): 195–237.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). “Series Históricas del Crecimiento de América Latina.” Series Históricas del Crecimiento de América Latina. Santiago, Chile: Economic Commission for Latin America, 1978.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). Statistical Yearbook. Santiago, Chile: Economic Commission for Latin America, 2008.Google Scholar
Engerman, Stanley L., and Kenneth, L. Sokoloff. “Factor Endowments, Institutions, and Differential Paths of Growth Among New World Economies: A View from Economic Historians of the United States.” In How Latin America Fell Behind edited by Haber, Stephen, 260–304. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinstein, Charles H.National Income, Expenditure, and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Fukao, Kyoji, Ma, Debin, and Yuan, Tangjun. “Real GDP in Prewar East Asia: A 1934–36 Benchmark Purchasing Power Parity Comparison with the United States.” Review of Income and Wealth 53, no. 3 (2007): 503–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallman, Robert. “Economic Growth and Structural Change in the Long Nineteenth Century.” In The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, edited by Engerman, Stanley and Gallman, Robert, 1–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Milton, and Associates. Comparative National Products and Price Levels. Paris: OEEC, 1958.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Milton, and Kravis, Irving. An International Comparison of National Products and the Purchasing Power of Currencies. Paris: OEEC, 1954.Google Scholar
Gutman, Pierre. “The Measurement of Terms of Trade Effects.” Review of Income and Wealth 27, no. 4 (1981): 433–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heston, Alan. “A Comparison of Some Shortcut Methods of Estimating Real Product per Capita.” Review of Income and Wealth 19, no. 1 (1973): 79–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heston, Alan, Summers, Robert, and Aten, Bettina. Penn World Table, Version 6.2. Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income, and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania, September 2006.Google Scholar
International Labor Office. Yearbook of Labor Statistics. Geneva: ILO, 1955.Google Scholar
Kenny, Charles. “Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything That Matters is Converging.” World Development 33, no. 1 (2005): 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohli, Ulrich. “Real GDP, Real Domestic Income, and Terms-of-Trade Changes.” Journal of International Economics 62, no. 1 (2004): 83–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, W. Arthur. Growth and Fluctuations, 1870–1913. London: Allen and Unwin, 1978.Google Scholar
Locay, Luis. “Cuban Socioeconomic Indicators Before the Revolution: An International Comparison.” Unpublished Manuscript. University of Miami, 2009.Google Scholar
Locay, Luis, and Gonzalez, Rodolfo. “The Impact of the Revolution on Cuba's Health Indices.” Unpublished Manuscript. University of Miami, 2008.Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus. The World Economy: Historical Statistics. Paris: Development Center of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2007.Google Scholar
McGuire, James W., and Laura, B. Frankel. “Mortality Decline in Cuba, 1900–1959: Patterns, Comparisons, and Causes.” Latin American Research Review 40, no. 2 (2005): 83–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oshima, Harry. “A New Estimate of the National Income and Product of Cuba in 1953.” Food Research Institute Studies 2, no. 3 (1961): 213–27.Google Scholar
Perez, Louis. On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Pérez-López, Jorge F. “An Index of Cuban Industrial Output, 1930–58.” In Quantitative Latin American Studies: Methods and Findings. Supplement 6 of Statistical Abstract of Latin America, edited by Wilkie, James and Ruddle, K., 37–72. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1977.Google Scholar
de la Escosura, Leandro Prados. “When Did Latin America Fall Behind?” In The Decline of Latin American Economies: Growth, Institutions, and Crises, edited by Edwards, Sebastian, Esquivel, Gerardo, and Márquez, Graciela, 15–58. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Carmen, and Kenneth, S. Rogoff. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Rubio, Mar, Yanez, Cesar, Folchi, Mauricio, and Carreras, Albert. “Energy as an Indicator of Modernization in Latin America, 1890–1925. Economic History Review 63, no. 3 (2010): 769–804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santamaria, Antonio. “El crecimiento económico de Cuba republicana (1902–1959). Una revisión y nuevas estimaciones en perspectiva comparada (población, inmigración golondrina, ingreso no azucarero y producto nacional bruto).” Revista de Indias 218 (2000): 505–45.Google Scholar
Santamaria, Antonio. “Las cuentas nacionales de Cuba, 1690–2005.” Madrid, 2005.Google Scholar
Sixto, Felipe. “An Evaluation of Four Decades of Cuban Healthcare.” In Cuba in Transition, XII Papers and Proceeds of ASCE, 2002.Google Scholar
Smith, Kirby, and Llorens, Hugo. “Renaissance and Decay: A Comparison of Socioeconomic Indicators in Pre-Castro and Current-Day Cuba.” Cuba in Transition 8, Papers and Proceeds of ASCE, 1998.Google Scholar
Speck, Mary“Closed-Door Imperialism: The Politics of Cuban-U.S. Trade, 1902–1922.” Hispanic American Historical Review 85, no. 3 (2005): 449–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Speck, Mary“Prosperity, Progress, and Wealth: Cuban Enterprise During the Early Republic, 1902–1927.” Cuban Studies 36 (2005): 50–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summers, Robert, and Heston, Alan. “The Penn World Tables (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 106, no. 2 (1991): 327–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tafunell, Xavier, and Carreras, Albert. “La América Latina y el Caribe en 1913 y 1925: Enfoque desde las importaciones de bienes de capital.” Trimestre Económico LXXV, no. 3 (2008): 715–53.Google Scholar
Tafunell, Xavier. “On the Origins of ISI: The Latin American Cement Industry, 1900–30.” Journal of Latin American Studies 39, no. 2 (2007): 299–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tafunell, Xavier. “Capital Formation in Machinery in Latin America, 1890–1930.” The Journal of Economic History 69, no. 4 (2009): 928–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Hugh. Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom. Second edition. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998.Google Scholar
United Nations. Statistical Yearbook. New York, various issues.Google Scholar
United Nations. Trade Yearbook 1959. New York.Google Scholar
United States. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 Washington, DC: GPO, 1975.Google Scholar
United States. Department of Commerce. Investment in Cuba. Washington, DC: GPO, 1956.Google Scholar
Wallich, Henry. Monetary Problems of an Export Economy: The Cuban Experience 1914–1947 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Marianne, and Devereux, John. “Measuring British Decline: Direct Versus Long-Span Income Measures.” The Journal of Economic History 63, no. 3 (2003): 826–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) Report on Cuba. Washington: IBRD, 1951.Google Scholar
World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) World Tables. Third Edition. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) Global Purchasing Power Parities and Real Expenditures. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008.Google Scholar
Young, Alwyn. “The African Growth Miracle” Unpublished Manuscript. London School of Economics, 2010.Google Scholar
Zanetti, Oscar, and García, Alejandro. United Fruit Company: Un Caso del Dominio Imperialista en Cuba. Havana, Cuba: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1976.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Ward and Devereux supplementary material

Appendix

Download Ward and Devereux supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 23.6 KB