ABSTRACT
The communist leadership started the "institutionalization" of the economy which was formally approved in December 1975 when the First Congress of the Cuban Communist Party passed a resolution to implement the new System of Economic Management and Planning. This chapter focuses on the more development of the Cuban economy. The discrepancy between the goals and the actual performance of the 1976-1980 plan made Cuban planners more cautious when setting targets for 1985. In 1985, the State Committee of Statistics published series of macroeconomic indicators for the period 1975-1984 which for the first time were reconstructed at comparable prices. Considering the performance of the Cuban economy in the first half of the 1980s, macroeconomic indicators and production figures have to be complemented by empirical data measuring economic activities on the micro level. Due to the absence of public discussion in Cuba, an evaluation of the island's forthcoming economic policies becomes a matter of speculation.
