Econometric analysis applied to urban property transactions in Havana between 1994-2007

This research allows me to corroborate and demonstrate my judgment about urban transactions in Havana with more credible and consistent information. It is one thing to observe a process, and another to prove where the thinking was accurate or mistaken. The determination of the price per square meter of urban land and buildings, that is quite a routine in other places, is complex in the Cuban context where there is a strong central government presence, which combines arbitrary answers with very discretionary actions and where there is very a restricted private environment. I decided to apply an econometric analysis and try to go further than the traditional descriptive methods used in Cuba, in order to determine the relevance of variables that appear relevant to the valorization process, for both the formal and the informal transactions. In this way I expect to discover the regularities and the distortions in the processes and to understand their various effects. I use the hedonic price theory to obtain mathematical models that enrich and support the analysis of the way property prices are determined in Havana: by extension it could be in Cuba. Unlike other cities and countries in the world that use econometric analysis to comprehend land and building markets, this is the first time this method has been applied in the Cuban context.