Land Reforms in Cuba: First Empirical Assessment on Productivity Using Crop‐Level Panel Data

ABSTRACT Land reforms implemented in Cuba since 2008 have aimed to increase agricultural production by distributing state‐owned idle lands with land‐use rights. The reforms restricted farmers with the rights from cultivating perennial and capital‐intensive crops. Thus, the reforms are expected to affect the productivity of annual crops, excluding capital‐intensive crops. We exploit the exogenous restrictions to empirically analyse the impact of the reforms on agricultural productivity using the difference‐in‐differences method based on crop‐level panel data in the nonstate sector. Our findings indicate that the 2008 reform improved the productivity of annual crops, although we noted no significant impact of the 2012 reform.