Cubanology and cuban economic performance

The Mesa-Lago/Perez-Lopez World Bank Study (MLPL) begins with the assertion that the Cuban statistical yearbook's Anuario Estadistico de Cuba section on macro-indicators usually has only one page of data and no discussion of methodology. The MLPL study correctly notes that a process of enterprise mergers during the 1960s significantly reduced the number of enterprises and that a process of enterprise disaggregation in the 1970s increased the number of enterprises from approximately 300 to 3,000. The MLPL authors speculate incorrectly on the meaning of these terms, which they complain the Cubans do not explain. The meaning of these terms is apparent in the context of the MPS methodologies. In the MLPL discussion of the Cuban effort to convert Cuban GMP to gross domestic product (GDP) for the year 1974, the authors make an interesting observation. The MLPL authors used dollar GDP per capita figures from 1958 as their benchmark.