Current Economic and Political Situation
Chair: Carlos Seiglie, ASCE President, Rutgers University
Joaquín Pujol, International Monetary Fund (retired), “Cuba: Great Expectations, but How Real Are They?”
Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, Cuban Economist, Temas magazine, “Cuba: Economía y Desafíos”
Jorge R. Piñón, Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy, University of Texas at Austin, “Cuba’s Energy Crisis: Truth or Fiction?”
Macroeconomic Topics
Roberto Orro Fernández, Caribbean Analysis Unit, “Cuban Monetary Unification: Zeroing in on Why There Has Been Zero Day Zero in Cuba”
Heidi Colby-Oizumi, U.S. International Trade Commission, “Overview of Cuban Imports of Goods and Services and Effects of U.S. Restrictions”
Pavel Vidal Alejandro, Universidad Javeriana, Colombia, and Ernesto Hernández-Catá, International Monetary Fund (retired) and The Foundry, Inc., “The Rise and Fall of Economic Growth in Cuba, 2015–16: External Factors, Business Confidence, and Domestic Policies”
Agriculture
Mario González-Corzo, Lehman College, The City University of New York, “Urban Agriculture in Cuba: An Update”
Jorge Pérez-López, U.S. Department of Labor (retired), “The Restructuring of the Cuban Sugar Agroindustry: A Progress Report”
Legal Issues
Dagoberto Valdés, Centro de Estudios Convivencia (CEC), “Un nuevo marco jurídico y tránsito constitucional en Cuba”
José Gabilondo, Florida International University College of Law, “Fundamentando las Reclamaciones de Cuba contra los EEUU: La Expropiación De Facto de la Propiedad Estatal de los Cubanos”
Michael J. Strauss, Centre d’Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques (Paris, France), “Returning Guantanamo Bay to Cuban Control”
La justicia transicional y la anhelada reconciliación nacional cubana
Fredo Arias King, director de Casla Institute y experto en países del ex bloque soviético, “Lecciones de justicia transicional de países del antiguo bloque comunista soviético”
Enrique García, ex oficial de la inteligencia cubana, “Transformando el aparato de seguridad cubano: retos y realidades”
Pastor Mario Félix Lleonart, pastor bautista, miembro de la Comisión Coordinadora del Encuentro Nacional Cubano y bloguero, “La anhelada reconciliación nacional: retos, realidades y esperanzas”
Maria C. Werlau, Directora Ejecutiva de Cuba Archive/Archivo Cuba, Proyecto de Verdad y Memoria, “La justicia transicional en un contexto universal: aprendizaje para Cuba”
Cuba’s Infrastructure in Support of Economic Development
Josef Asteinza, Producer and Writer of the documentary film Havana Modern: The Architecture of Nicolás Quintana; and Vivian García, University of Miami, “Mapping Cuba’s 20th Century Architecture ”
Diana Arboleda, Francisco DeCaso and Antonio Nanni, Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, University of Miami, “Historic Infrastructure Rehabilitation with Fabric Reinforced Cementitious Matrix (FRCM) Composites”
Enrique S. Pumar, The Catholic University of America; Helena M. Solo-Gabriele, Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, University of Miami; Joseph B. Treaster, School of Communications, University of Miami, ”Perceptions of Water Quality in Cuba as Reported by Users: Preliminary Findings of the Cuban Water Project”
Wangda Zuo, College of Engineering, University of Miami; Raymond Kaiser, Amzur Technologies; and Stephen Welty, Calor Technologies, “Envisioning a 21st Century Renewable, Reliable, Resilient and Affordable Energy Infrastructure for Cuba”
Cuba’s Self-Imposed Embargo
Emilio Morales, The Havana Consulting Group, “Gobierno cubano, ¿congela o descongela los límites del sector privado en la era del deshielo?”
Jorge A. Sanguinetty, DevTech Systems, “Implications of Cuba´s Foreign Investment Law in the Context of 2016”
Juan Antonio Blanco, Historiador (PhD) y Director Ejecutivo de la Fundación de Derechos Humanos para Cuba, “Tres mitos referidos al embargo”
Student Panel
Aleida Cobas-Valdés, Universidad de la Habana and Department of Applied Economics and Institute of Public Economics, University of Basque Country, Spain, “Cuban Immigrants in the United States: What Determines their Earnings Distribution?”
Nayara Sabrina de Freitas Alves, Department of Biology, University of Miami and Universidade do Estado do Para, Brazil, “Havana’s Wastewater Treatment Plants: Changes over Time and Estimate of Replacement Cost”
Demography
Luis Locay, University of Miami, “Why Did the Cuban Infant Mortality Rate Rise during the First Decade of the Revolution?”
Sergio Díaz-Briquets, “Population Aging in Cuba: Policy Options from a Global Perspective” Emilio Morales, The Havana Consulting Group, “La demografía de las remesas a Cuba”
Cuban Economic Reforms and Party Congresses
Osmar Laffita Rojas, Partido Solidaridad Democrática y CubaNet, “Los problemas de la economía no resueltos por el VI Congreso”
Larry Catá Backer, Penn State University, “Central Planning Versus Market Marxism: The Cuban Communist Party Confronts Crisis, Challenge and Change in its 7th Congress”
Domingo Amuchástegui, columnist for Cuba Standard and Temas, “A Nation’s Debate: What to Expect” Gary Maybarduk, U.S. Department of State (retired), “Cuba’s Seventh Party Congress: Listening Carefully to Raúl”
Ernesto Betancourt Keynote Address
Vicente Botín, Spanish journalist and TV Española Correspondent, “Las cuentas y los cuentos de las reformas”
Impacts of Structural Economic Reforms
José Gabilondo, Florida International University College of Law, “Assessing Cuba’s Monetary Reforms: What Will Happen to State Balance Sheets?”
Ernesto Hernández-Catá, IMF (retired) and The Foundry, Inc., “Growth and Policy-Induced Distortions in the Cuban Economy”
Roger Betancourt, University of Maryland, “USA-Cuba Migration Policy: A Political Economy View”
International Relations
Carlos A. Romero, Universidad Central de Venezuela, “Business as Usual: Venezuelan-Cuban Relations Today”
Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan, “The Impossible Triangle: Cuba, the US, and Miami and the Reestablishment of Relations”
Jorge Hernandez Fonseca, Dr. Ing., “Cuba, Brasil y el puerto de Mariel”
Miriam Leiva, Independent Journalist, Reconciliación Cubana, “Cuba: Movimiento o Caos”
Tourism and Self-Employment
Rafael Romeu, DevTech Systems; Trevor Alleyne and Sebastian Acevedo, IMF, “The Vacation is Over, 2016”
José Perelló, Universidad de la Habana, “Tourism Development in Cuba: Trends, Policies and Relevant Issues Impacting the Future”
Yailenis Mulet Concepción, Universidad de la Habana, “El trabajo por cuenta propia después de las reformas de Raúl Castro: Un balance”
Private Sector
Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, Cuban Economist, Temas magazine, and Janette García Cobas, Centro Cristiano de Reflexión y Diálogo, “El desarrollo de las pequeñas y medianas empresas en Cuba: Una necesidad impostergable”
Gilberto “Papito” Valladares and Camilo Condis Mojena, cuentapropistas, “El proyecto Artecorte: Un proyecto comunitario de desarrollo local en la Cuba actual”
Ramón Bedías, cuentapropista, “El Patio de Ramoncito”
Authors Meet Critics
Authors: Archibald R.M. Ritter, Carleton University and Ted A. Henken, Baruch College, Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape
Critic: Sergio Díaz-Briquets,
Author: Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan, Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus
Critic: Enrique Pumar, The Catholic University of America
Authors: Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Pérez-López, Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms
Critic: Mario González-Corzo, Lehman College, The City University of New York
Historical and Cultural Perspectives
Luis Martínez-Fernández, University of Central Florida, “Centuries-Deep Roots: Early Colonial Foundations of Twentieth-Century Cuban Society and Culture”
Yvon Grenier, St. Francis Xavier University, “Temas and Anathemas: Depoliticization and Newspeak in Cuba’s Social Sciences and Humanities”
Soren Triff, Bristol Community College, “The Other Racism: The Role of the Revolutionary Discourse in Cuban Identity Economics”
Development Strategies and Results
Eduardo López Bastida, Universidad de Cienfuegos, “Algunas consideraciones sobre ciencia, tecnología, innovación tecnológica y medio ambiente para desarrollo próspero y sostenible cubano”
Dagoberto Valdés, Centro de Estudios Convivencia (CEC), “Propuestas para reformas de la economía cubana”
Mauricio Font, City University of New York, “Spatial Differentiation: Oriente v. Occidente”
Osmany Sánchez, Universidad de Matanzas, “Paisajes y economía ecológica: bases geográficas para la gestión costera integrada en la provincia de Matanzas”
Cuba and the Internet
Salvi Pascual, cuentapropista, Apretaste.com, “Using the current tech and infrastructure to connect Cuba to the Web”
Lázaro J. Blanco Encinosa, Centro de Estudios de Técnicas de Dirección, Universidad de La Habana, “Internet y las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones en el sector empresarial cubano. Actualidad, perspectivas y retos”
Celia Mendoza and Robin Pedraja, cuentapropistas, Vistar magazine, “Alternativas entre la conexión y la desconexión”
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