The Cuban Economy - La Econom. Гa Cubana. Published in Current History, February 2. INTERNAL EMBARGOВ See original essay here: В Overcoming Cuba’s Internal Embargo. By Ted A. Henken and Archibald R. M. Ritter. In scores of interviews conducted over the past 1. Cuban entrepreneurs for our new book, “Entrepreneurial Cuba,” Arch Ritter and I often heard the following two very pregnant Cuban sayings: “El ojo del amo engorda el caballo” (The eye of the owner fattens the horse) and “El que tenga tienda que la atienda, o si no que la venda” (Whoever has a store should tend to it, and if not then sell it”). The first adage indicates that the quality of a good or service improves when the person performing it enjoys autonomy and has a financial stake in the outcome. The second saying suggests that if the Cuban government is unable to “tend its own stores,” then it should let others take them over. In essence, this popular wisdom demands that the state turn over to the private sector the economic activities it cannot operate effectively itself—many of which are already widely practiced in Cuba’s ubiquitous underground economy. In other words, the U. S. embargo – recently dealt a near fatal blow by the joint decision by Presidents Barack Obama and Ra.
Transfer Of Information In Parrondo Games2girlsArticles needing factual verification. These articles contain information for which source verification has been requested. That means that somebody found the. úl Castro to reestablish diplomatic relations after almost 5. Cuba’s economic revitalization. Though the American “bloqueo” has long been the target of withering and well- deserved international condemnation, on the island Cubans themselves are much more likely to criticize what they bitterly refer to as the “auto- bloqueo” (internal embargo) imposed by the Cuban government itself on the entrepreneurial ingenuity, access to uncensored information and open communications, as well as basic civil and political rights of the Cuban people. President Barack Obama has opened a door to potential U. S. investment in (and import/export to and from) Cuba’s entrepreneurial and telecom sectors. But is Ra. úl Castro willing to allow U. S. companies to operate on the island? More important still, is his government ready to open up to the Cuban people by beginning to relinquish its tight control over private enterprise and the Internet? While we believe that it is both good and necessary for the United States to open up to Cuba and vice versa (to paraphrase the late Pope John Paul II), our book argues that little economic progress or political freedom will be enjoyed by Cubans themselves until the Cuban government opens up to its own people, ceases to demand their acquiescence as subjects, and begins to respect them as citizens, consumers, and entrepreneurs with defensible and inalienable economic and political rights of their own. In fact, two weeks following the historic mid- December Obama- Castro announcement, the Cuban government received its first public test of whether its internal embargo would now be relaxed in light of the sea- change in U. S. policy. On December 3. Cuban artist Tania Bruguera organized a public act of performance art in Havana’s iconic Revolutionary Plaza. Dubbed “#Yo. Tambien. Exijo,” Bruguera invited Cuban citizens to “share their own demands” on the government and visions for the island’s future for one minute each at an open- mic set up in the Plaza. Predictably, the government responded by arresting and detaining scores of artists, activists, and independent journalists, which amounted to an even more public “performance” of its own typically repressive tactics, as news of the event echoed in the international media on the final day of the year. Thus, while we can celebrate the fact that the U. S. and Cuban governments have finally agreed to begin respectful, diplomatic engagement, the Cuban government’s failure to respectfully engage with the diverse and often dissenting voices of its own citizens makes us wonder with Bruguera whether “it’s the Cuban people who will benefit from this new historic moment,” as she put it in her previously circulated open letter to Ra. úl Castro. Between 1. President Fidel Castro pursued an economic policy retrenchment that gradually phased out the pro- market reforms of the early 1. Therefore, he was unwilling to transfer more than a token portion of the state “store” to private entrepreneurs. His brother, Ra. úl Castro, whose presidency began in 2. While the underlying goal of economic reform is still to “preserve and perfect socialism,” he has started to deliberatively shrink the state “store” and transfer the production of many goods and services to the more than half- a- million new small enterprises, including both private and cooperative ventures. However, much more remains to be done in reforming policies toward microenterprise so that it can contribute fully to productive employment, innovation, and economic growth. For example, 7. 0 percent of the newly self- employed were previously unemployed, meaning that they likely converted previously existing underground enterprises into legal ones, doing little to absorb the 1. Moreover, only 7 percent of self- employed are university graduates, and most of them work in “low tech” activities because almost all professional self- employment is prohibited. This acts a “blockade” on the effective use of Cuba’s well- educated labor force, obstructing innovation and productivity. A further goal of the tentative reforms to date has been to facilitate the emergence of cooperative and small enterprise sectors so that they can generate sustained improvements in material standards of living. This can only be achieved with additional reforms that effectively “end the embargo” against Cuban entrepreneurs. Among the necessary changes would be: 1. Opening the professions to private enterprise,2. Implementing affordable wholesale markets,3. Providing access to foreign exchange and imports (a fiercely guarded state monopoly),4. Establishing effective credit facilities,5. Permitting the establishment of retailing enterprises, and. Relaxing the tax burden on small enterprise, which now discriminates against domestic enterprise in favor of foreign investors. Progress in all these areas would be greatly facilitated by access to U. S. investors and markets (both as a source of desperately needed wholesale inputs and as a place to sell their products), something now possible following the implementation of Obama’s historic policy changes during the coming year. However, it remains to be seen whether Ra. úl has the political will to intensify the internal reform process. The outright prohibition of activities the government prefers to keep under state monopoly allows it to exercise control over Cuban citizens and impose an apparent order over society. However, this comes at the cost of pushing all targeted economic activity (along with potential tax revenue) back into the black market – where much of it lurked prior to 2. On the other hand, the inclusion and regulation of the many private activities dreamed up and market- tested by Cuba’s always inventive entrepreneurial sector would create more jobs, a higher quality and variety of goods and services at lower prices, while also increasing tax revenue. However, these benefits come at the political cost of allowing greater citizen autonomy, wealth and property in private hands, and open competition against state monopolies. The viability of Cuba’s reforms also depends on the recently announced changes in U. S. policy toward Cuba and on Cuba’s changing policy toward its émigr. és, who already play a major role in the Cuban economy as suppliers of start- up capital via the billions of dollars they provide annually in remittances. Such investment could be expanded if the Cuban government were to deepen its recent migration reforms by granting greater economic rights to its extensive émigr. é community. Obama’s relaxation of U. S. policy will inevitably shift the political calculus that underlies economic reform on the island. As external obstacles to Cuba’s economic revitalization are removed, the onus will fall with increased pressure on the Cuban government to broaden and deepen its initial reforms, since it alone will be to blame for poor performance. For example, organizations like Catholic Church- affiliated Cuba. Emprende have already begun to offer entrepreneurship workshops to small business owners with the financial backing of Cuban- Americans. Now that they needn’t worry about the threat of U. S. sanctions, will this and other similar projects be provided the legal and institutional space to flourish by the Cuban government? Despite a continued state monopoly on the mass media and one of the Western Hemisphere’s lowest Internet penetration rates, in recent years Cuba has seen a number of significant developments in information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities, access to uncensored news, and the availability of new dissemination channels for digital data. These developments include: 1. The spread of the worldwide blogging and citizen journalism phenomena to Cuba; 2. The connection of a fiber- optic Internet cable to the island from Venezuela in 2. Internet caf. és in June 2. The appearance of a small number of independent, island- based news outlets – including the news and opinion websites Havana Times, On Cuba, and 1. Yoani Sánchez in May 2. The creation of a number of unauthorized “mesh” networks that use private Wi- Fi networks to communicate and share information, and. The emergence of an underground digital data distribution system known as “el paquete” (the packet). Each of these developments could be accelerated by the new U. S. policy that allows American telecom providers to do business in Cuba, but only if the Cuban government is willing to allow diversification and freer competition in its centralized, monopolistic ICT system. Game theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Game theory is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision- makers."[1] Game theory is mainly used in economics, political science, and psychology, as well as logic, computer science, biology and Poker (Texas No Limit Hold'em).[2] Originally, it addressed zero- sum games, in which one person's gains result in losses for the other participants. Today, game theory applies to a wide range of behavioral relations, and is now an umbrella term for the science of logical decision making in humans, animals, and computers. Modern game theory began with the idea regarding the existence of mixed- strategy equilibria in two- person zero- sum games and its proof by John von Neumann. Von Neumann's original proof used Brouwer fixed- point theorem on continuous mappings into compact convex sets, which became a standard method in game theory and mathematical economics. His paper was followed by the 1. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, co- written with Oskar Morgenstern, which considered cooperative games of several players. The second edition of this book provided an axiomatic theory of expected utility, which allowed mathematical statisticians and economists to treat decision- making under uncertainty. This theory was developed extensively in the 1. Game theory was later explicitly applied to biology in the 1. Game theory has been widely recognized as an important tool in many fields. With the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences going to game theorist Jean Tirole in 2. Nobel Prize. John Maynard Smith was awarded the Crafoord Prize for his application of game theory to biology. Representation of games[edit]The games studied in game theory are well- defined mathematical objects. To be fully defined, a game must specify the following elements: the players of the game, the information and actions available to each player at each decision point, and the payoffs for each outcome. Eric Rasmusen refers to these four "essential elements" by the acronym "PAPI".)[3] A game theorist typically uses these elements, along with a solution concept of their choosing, to deduce a set of equilibrium strategies for each player such that, when these strategies are employed, no player can profit by unilaterally deviating from their strategy. These equilibrium strategies determine an equilibrium to the game—a stable state in which either one outcome occurs or a set of outcomes occur with known probability. Most cooperative games are presented in the characteristic function form, while the extensive and the normal forms are used to define noncooperative games. Extensive form[edit]The extensive form can be used to formalize games with a time sequencing of moves. Games here are played on trees (as pictured here). Here each vertex (or node) represents a point of choice for a player. The player is specified by a number listed by the vertex. The lines out of the vertex represent a possible action for that player. The payoffs are specified at the bottom of the tree. The extensive form can be viewed as a multi- player generalization of a decision tree. The game pictured consists of two players. The way this particular game is structured (i. Player 1 "moves" first by choosing either F or U (letters are assigned arbitrarily for mathematical purposes). Next in the sequence, Player 2, who has now seen Player 1's move, chooses to play either A or R. Once Player 2 has made his/ her choice, the game is considered finished and each player gets their respective payoff. Suppose that Player 1 chooses U and then Player 2 chooses A: Player 1 then gets a payoff of "eight" (which in real- world terms can be interpreted in many ways, the simplest of which is in terms of money but could mean things such as eight days of vacation or eight countries conquered or even eight more opportunities to play the same game against other players) and Player 2 gets a payoff of "two". The extensive form can also capture simultaneous- move games and games with imperfect information. To represent it, either a dotted line connects different vertices to represent them as being part of the same information set (i. See example in the imperfect information section.)Normal form[edit]Player 2chooses Left. Player 2chooses Right. Player 1chooses Up. Player 1chooses Down. Normal form or payoff matrix of a 2- player, 2- strategy game. The normal (or strategic form) game is usually represented by a matrix which shows the players, strategies, and payoffs (see the example to the right). More generally it can be represented by any function that associates a payoff for each player with every possible combination of actions. In the accompanying example there are two players; one chooses the row and the other chooses the column. Each player has two strategies, which are specified by the number of rows and the number of columns. The payoffs are provided in the interior. The first number is the payoff received by the row player (Player 1 in our example); the second is the payoff for the column player (Player 2 in our example). Suppose that Player 1 plays Up and that Player 2 plays Left. Then Player 1 gets a payoff of 4, and Player 2 gets 3. When a game is presented in normal form, it is presumed that each player acts simultaneously or, at least, without knowing the actions of the other. If players have some information about the choices of other players, the game is usually presented in extensive form. Every extensive- form game has an equivalent normal- form game, however the transformation to normal form may result in an exponential blowup in the size of the representation, making it computationally impractical. Characteristic function form[edit]In games that possess removable utility, separate rewards are not given; rather, the characteristic function decides the payoff of each unity. The idea is that the unity that is 'empty', so to speak, does not receive a reward at all. The origin of this form is to be found in John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's book; when looking at these instances, they guessed that when a union appears, it works against the fraction as if two individuals were playing a normal game. The balanced payoff of C is a basic function. Although there are differing examples that help determine coalitional amounts from normal games, not all appear that in their function form can be derived from such. Formally, a characteristic function is seen as: (N,v), where N represents the group of people and is a normal utility. Such characteristic functions have expanded to describe games where there is no removable utility. General and applied uses[edit]As a method of applied mathematics, game theory has been used to study a wide variety of human and animal behaviors. It was initially developed in economics to understand a large collection of economic behaviors, including behaviors of firms, markets, and consumers. The first use of game- theoretic analysis was by Antoine Augustin Cournot in 1. Cournot duopoly. The use of game theory in the social sciences has expanded, and game theory has been applied to political, sociological, and psychological behaviors as well. Although pre- twentieth century naturalists such as Charles Darwin made game- theoretic kinds of statements, the use of game- theoretic analysis in biology began with Ronald Fisher's studies of animal behavior during the 1. This work predates the name "game theory", but it shares many important features with this field. The developments in economics were later applied to biology largely by John Maynard Smith in his book Evolution and the Theory of Games.[citation needed]In addition to being used to describe, predict, and explain behavior, game theory has also been used to develop theories of ethical or normative behavior and to prescribe such behavior.[6] In economics and philosophy, scholars have applied game theory to help in the understanding of good or proper behavior. Game- theoretic arguments of this type can be found as far back as Plato.[7]Description and modeling[edit]The primary use of game theory is to describe and model how human populations behave. Some[who?] scholars believe that by finding the equilibria of games they can predict how actual human populations will behave when confronted with situations analogous to the game being studied. This particular view of game theory has been criticized. First, it argued that the assumptions made by game theorists are often violated when applied to real world situations. Game theorists usually assume players act rationally, but in practice, human behavior often deviates from this model. Game theorists respond by comparing their assumptions to those used in physics. Thus while their assumptions do not always hold, they can treat game theory as a reasonable scientific ideal akin to the models used by physicists. However, empirical work has shown that in some classic games, such as the centipede game, guess 2/3 of the average game, and the dictator game, people regularly do not play Nash equilibria. There is an ongoing debate regarding the importance of these experiments and whether the analysis of the experiments fully captures all aspects of the relevant situation.[8]Some game theorists, following the work of John Maynard Smith and George R. Price, have turned to evolutionary game theory in order to resolve these issues. These models presume either no rationality or bounded rationality on the part of players. Despite the name, evolutionary game theory does not necessarily presume natural selection in the biological sense. Evolutionary game theory includes both biological as well as cultural evolution and also models of individual learning (for example, fictitious play dynamics). Prescriptive or normative analysis[edit]Cooperate. Defect. Cooperate- 1, - 1- 1. Defect. 0, - 1. 0- 5, - 5. The Prisoner's Dilemma.
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