August 28, 2015 - 4:00 PM
Panel Discussion and Book Launch
•US Economic Sanctions on Cuba: Current Status and Looking Ahead (Update on changing restrictions on travel, remittances, an economic exchange…)
Mark P. Sullivan, Congressional research Service, Specialist in Latin American Affaires
•Entrepreneurship: Experiences and Possible Lessons for Cuba
Mario González-Corzo, Lehman College, CUNY
Moderator: Mauricio Font, Bildner Center, CUNY
Mark Sullivan is a specialist in Latin American affairs with the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress, where he provides support to Members and committees of Congress for their legislative and oversight work on Latin America. He has covered a variety of countries and issues in U.S. relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. He co-authored Cuba Sanctions: Legislative Restrictions Limiting the Normalization of Relations(2015). His speech will be focused on legal travel, remittances, economic exchange and other issues.
Carlos Fernández-Aballí Altamirano is an engineer, CUJAE professor, and entrepreneur (producer of dehydrated seasonings). He earned his doctorate at the University of Bristol, England. Still as a student he won two international awards, and a third, in Cuba, from the Spanish Agency for Iberoamerican Cooperation for the construction of 100 homes using rice husk between the materials.
Mario González-Corzo is associate professor at the Department of Economics at Lehman College, CUNY, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in economics and finance. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University. His research and areas of specialization include Cuba’s post-Soviet economic transformations, the role of remittances in the Cuban economy, and Cuba’s banking and agricultural sectors. Dr. González-Corzo is a contributing editor for the section on Cuban political economy and economics of the Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) published by the Library of Congress. He is also a research associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami (FL).
Mauricio Font is director of the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies and professor of sociology at The Graduate Center and Queens College, CUNY. He is co-editor of Handbook on Cuban History, literature, and the Arts (Paradigm Press, 2014), Cuban Counterpoints: The Legacy of Fernando Ortiz (Lexington Books, 2005), La República Cubana y José Martí (1902-2002) (Lexington Books, 2005), Toward a New Cuba? (Lynne Rienner, 1997) and Integración económica y democratización: América Latina y Cuba (Instituto de Estudios Internacionales, Universidad de Chile, 1998). Professor Font’s most recent publication is
The State and the Private Sector in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan, June, 2015).
Presentation of two books on Cuba:
Reformando el Modelo Económico Cubano
Mauricio A. Font, Mario González-Corzo (Editors)
This book focuses on Cuba’s emergent economic model within a historical framework that includes small businesses and their regulation by the state, new taxation structure, prospects for future cooperatives, Cuban exports and competitiveness in the international market, and prospects for micro-financing.
La Agroindustria Cañera Cubana: Transformaciones Recientes
Mario González-Corzo (Editor)This volume presents an analysis of the evolution and recent transformation of the sugar cane industry in Cuba from the fallout of sugar production during the Special Period to the creation of AZCUBA in 2011 to face new challenges; it also covers the potential use of sugar as energy and the behavior of the commodity within the global market economy.