Editing Economy of Cuba (section)

=== Colonial and Republican period (1870-1959) ===
Although Cuba belonged to the high-income countries of Latin America since the 1870s, [[income inequality]] was high, accompanied by capital outflows to foreign investors.<ref>{{cite book|author=Baten, Jörg |title=A History of the [[World Economy]]. From 1500 to the Present.|date=2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=137|isbn=978-1-107-50718-0}}</ref> The country's economy had grown rapidly in the early part of the century, fueled by the sale of sugar to the United States.<ref>[Mehrotra, Santosh. (1997) Human Development in Cuba: Growing Risk of Reversal in Development with a Human Face: Experience in Social Achievement and Economic Growth Ed. Santosh Mehrotra and Richard Jolly, Clarendon Press, Oxford]</ref>

Before the [[Cuban Revolution]], in 1958, Cuba had a per-capita GDP of $2,363, which placed it in the middle of Latin American countries.<ref name="maddisonproj">{{cite web|url=https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2020|title=Maddison Project Database 2020|date=27 October 2020 |publisher=Maddison Project|access-date=16 November 2021}}</ref> According to the UN, between 1950 and 1955, Cuba had a life expectancy of 59.4 years, which placed it in 56th place in the global ranking.<ref name="unlifeexp">{{cite web|url=https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Files/1_Indicators%20(Standard)/EXCEL_FILES/3_Mortality/WPP2019_MORT_F07_1_LIFE_EXPECTANCY_0_BOTH_SEXES.xlsx|title=Life Expectancy at Birth (e0) - Both Sexes|publisher=UN|access-date=16 November 2021|archive-date=30 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210530103156/https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Files/1_Indicators%20(Standard)/EXCEL_FILES/3_Mortality/WPP2019_MORT_F07_1_LIFE_EXPECTANCY_0_BOTH_SEXES.xlsx|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Its proximity to the [[United States]] made it a familiar holiday destination for wealthy Americans. Their visits for gambling, horse racing, and golfing<ref name="smithsonianmag.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/before-the-revolution-159682020/?no-ist|title=Before the Revolution|author=Natasha Geiling|work=Smithsonian|access-date=11 June 2015}}</ref> made tourism an important economic sector. Tourism magazine ''Cabaret Quarterly'' described [[Havana]] as "a mistress of pleasure, the lush and opulent goddess of delights".<ref name="smithsonianmag.com" /> Cuban dictator [[Fulgencio Batista]] had plans to line the [[Malecón, Havana|Malecon]], Havana's famous walkway by the water, with hotels and casinos to attract even more tourists.

In the late 1950s, Cuba's oil sector was controlled by three large international oil companies: [[Standard Oil of New Jersey]] (Esso), [[Texaco]], and [[Shell plc|Royal Dutch Shell]].<ref name=":022">{{Cite book |last=Cederlöf |first=Gustav |title=The Low-Carbon Contradiction: Energy Transition, Geopolitics, and the Infrastructural State in Cuba |date=2023 |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |isbn=978-0-520-39313-4 |series=Critical environments: nature, science, and politics |location=Oakland, California}}</ref>{{Rp|page=39}}