Cuba Economic Review: This Crisis Demands More Than the Old Playbook

This edition of Cuba Economic Review explores the many reasons why President Díaz-Canel’s recent call for “urgent transformations” demands an entirely different approach. Quick Takes covers new measures affecting the private sector, from opening care services and partnerships with state entities to restrictions on foreign-currency e-commerce, alongside the government’s renewed—and still unheeded—appeals to address Cuba’s cratering per capita GDP. By the Numbers focuses on household electricity consumption and shows how it reflects structural distortions in productivity, tariffs, energy use, and household survival strategies. In Deep argues that Cuba faces not just a crisis of contraction, but also one marked by rising inequality, institutional weakness, the deterioration of social protections, and lost legitimacy. Recommended Reading reviews a press article describing a possible economic shift in Washington’s approach toward Cuba.