Talk:Economy of Cuba

Peer Review Comments
The section about before the revolution looks really good so far. Paragraph four is a little choppy, so that could be smoothed out.

For the "citation needed," this source may be worth looking at. http://latinamericanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-4

Cuban sugar quota Looks good to me

Zafra You may want to block the Castro quote, though I'm not certain of what the rules for that are

Overall, the work you've done looks good! Jgriffith19 (talk) 15:46, 29 March 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgriffith19 (talk • contribs) 15:44, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

5 percent under poverty
5 percent under poverty line gives no citation and google suggests that this information is not actually available. Elliot9000 (talk) 06:17, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Special Period: comparison with North Korean famine
"A Canadian Medical Association Journal paper claimed that "The famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s,..." when reading the source, I saw that it was an anonymous article posted on a bulletin. Are there reliable resources that state the same conclusion? RenaatPeeters (talk) 17:46, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The complete second paragraph under Special Period is strange: "mortality rates were not strongly affected" ?? I have never read a source that states that there has been one fatality due to famine. The source cited doesn't exist. RenaatPeeters (talk) 18:07, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I have been studying on the subject quite a while now and I haven't encountered any source that speaks about deaths due to the food shortages. Many are the sources that say that due to a different diet the Cubans' health improved dramatically during the years of austerity. Deaths from cardiovascular disease and adult-onset type 2 diabetes fell by a third and a half, respectively. Strokes declined more modestly, and overall mortality rates went down. Referring to the North Korean famine creates a false image. RenaatPeeters (talk) 11:27, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, and it creates an undue weight issue with this article. I deleted it. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:37, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Venezuela as "Client State" of Cuba
From "Economic Freedom": Cuba ranked 31st among the 32 countries in South and Central America, with the Heritage Foundation rating Venezuela as a "client state" of Cuba's and one of the least free.

Previous sections seem to imply the reverse, that Cuba is economically dependent on Venezuela; for example, As of 2012, Venezuela accounted for 20.8% of Cuba's GDP while Cuba only accounted for roughly 4% of Venezuela's. While the citation given for the Heritage Foundation does not state this claim, I found a document from them that did say this. It seems like this was added in July of 2021, after updating a section sourcing from 2014, while also removing context about the Heritage Foundation's ideological bias.

Should the part about Venezuela being a client state of Cuba be removed, while keeping the rest of the sentence? And should it be framed in the context of the Heritage Foundation's biases? 128.163.248.203 (talk) 18:14, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi IP, in case you're still around, thanks for pointing this out. I have at least trimmed the "client state" clause. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:31, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Potential bias in "Economic freedom" section
The first paragraph of the economic freedom section is sourced only to the Index of Economic Freedom, which is published by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal. These are both very strongly conservative and pro-capitalism sources, and both have a recent history of pushing outright disinformation - albeit with non-economic subjects, such as climate change denialism. This leads me to doubt the accuracy of their assessment of a country that is primarily perceived as either a mixed economy or socialist - I do not feel that a source which is as strongly conservative as THF is able to accurately and fairly assess the freedom of an economy such as Cuba's, even if they had a history of acting in good faith and providing accurate information, which THF does not.

I believe it would be better for this source to either be replaced with a more neutral one that does not have a history of disinformation, or for it to at least be matched with a more centrist- or left-leaning source. If neither can be found, perhaps it would be best to remove this paragraph?

I'm still new to editing wikipedia, so please let me know if there is a better way to propose this change (e.g. something along the "Citation needed" tags). I would edit it to include one of those sources, but I am not familiar enough with the subject to judge if one is reliable enough. DuskTheUmbreon (talk) 19:32, 28 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for raising this point in a detailed and thoughtful manner.
 * Yes, there are possibly appropriate templates you could add to the text. Assuming you are editing in visual, go to Insert. Then template. Then type "Better source needed" and select it. Another possible template is "Unreliable source?"
 * Keep in mind that a source having an ideological standpoint does not make a source unreliable per the Wikipedia policies (The RS policy states, "Reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective."). I recognize you have raised other points as well in this instance, but because you also raised ideology I wanted to orient you to that. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:27, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the help! I greatly appreciate the tip about the template. Haven't had the chance to mess with those yet, on this site or on any other wiki.
 * I'll keep in mind that bias alone isn't enough to say "This isn't reliable". DuskTheUmbreon (talk) 16:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. JArthur1984 (talk) 16:46, 29 August 2023 (UTC)