Archi Ritter
"Ph.D and Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canadá"

He is a “Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus” in the Department of Economics and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. He holds a BA in Economics from Queen’s University, an MA in Economics from the University of Western Ontario and a Ph.D. in Economics with a minor in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Besides his employment at Carleton University, he has worked in the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago Chile (1973-1974), the Department of Energy Mines and Resources, Government of Canada (1979-1981) and has also lived and worked in Kenya and Tanzania.

He has had a long interest in Cuba beginning perhaps with the chance reading of “Listen Yankee” by C. Wright Mills (an effective piece of propaganda). Or maybe it began with a previous interest in the French Revolution – which ran amok. But maybe the real origin of his obsession with Cuba was that his Father smoked White Owl cigars, which at that time were made from Cuban tobacco but wrapped in Connecticut leaf. For this reason, being in Cuba has always felt sort of like being at home.

He has visited Cuba frequently since 1965. He was an initiator on the Canadian side and was the Canadian co-ordinator of the Masters in Economics Program provided with the University of Havana for young Cuban professors from 1994 to 1999, financed by the International Development Research Centre and the Canada’s Aid Agency.

He has published a variety of works on Cuba’s development policies and experience including The Economic Development of Revolutionary Cuba: Strategy and Performance, New York: Praeger 1974; Cuba in the International System: Integration and Normalization, (editor), London: Macmillan, 1995; with co-editor J. Kirk; and The Cuban Economy, (editor), Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. He is the author of the Blog entitled The Cuban Economy / La Economia Cubana at http://thecubaneconomy.com/.

His most recent book was written with Ted Henken and is titled: "Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape."