Farmers in Cuba got way more productive when they were just given 'rights' to the land, proving you don't need private ownership.
March 19, 2026
Original Paper
Productivity Effects of Usufruct Land Reform in Cuba’s Non-State Agricultural Sector
SSRN · 6437684
The Takeaway
This study challenges the central economic assumption that productivity requires full private property rights. It found that as long as tenure was predictable and secure, farmers in Cuba's non-state sector dramatically increased land productivity despite 'incomplete' rights and a lack of formal ownership.
From the abstract
This study empirically analyzes the impact of Cuba's idle land usufruct policy, introduced in 2008, on agricultural performance in the non-state sector. Cuba has long faced structural challenges under a socialist planned economy, including stagnant productivity and growing food import dependence. While the usufruct policy represented a major agricultural reform, its causal effects remain insufficiently examined. Using a balanced crop-by-sector panel dataset (2002–2021) from Cuba's Nati