African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
230 p., For almost five decades, the United States has maintained a comprehensive economic embargo on Cuba. U.S.-based travel to the island is severely restricted, and most financial and commercial transactions with Cuba are illegal for U.S. citizens. In the 1990s the United States tightened the embargo further, seeking to promote change in Cuba by depriving the Castro government of hard currency revenues. And yet the stalemate remains. This book argues that the embargo has not been particularly effective in achieving its primary goal. The United States has not only been unable to stifle the flow of foreign investment into Cuba but has actually contributed to the recovery of the Cuban economy, particularly from the deep recession it entered following the demise of the Soviet Union.
Policies imposed on Haiti by international financial institutions (i.e., the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) since the 1980s, such as currency devaluation and trade liberalization, negated Haitian agricultural performance and the capacity of the Haitian state to manage the economy, thus exacerbating the current food crisis.
Hamburg, Germany: Institut fur Iberoamerika-Kunde (IIK), GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies/Leibniz-Institut fur Globale und Regionale Studien
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Most economies in Latin America and the Caribbean were supported primarily by exports in 2005, and economic growth, though slower than in 2004, was at more than 4 % and still above the average annual growth rate from 1996-2005. While slower but still relatively robust growth is anticipated for 2006, the outlook is not particularly favorable for approaching the remarkable growth in other developing nations and regions as serious economic risks threaten development.
Argues that the architecture of the world monetary-financial sphere should be changed by reforming the Jamaica world monetary system and establishing a more transparent and sustainable mechanism for the transborder movement of capital. K. Cargill