Features: Economy

The Pros and Cons of Venezuela's Currency Controls

By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim - Venezuelanalysis.com, Jan 31st 2014

Venezuelan currency policy has seen both successes and failures over the last decade (Ryan Mallett-Outtrim/Venezuelanalysis)

Venezuela's currency controls including its fixed exchange rate are among the most controversial of Chavez-era policies. Here is a brief, straight-forward run down of some of the pros and cons of the country's currency regime.

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Where is Venezuela’s Economy Headed?

By Ewan Robertson – Venezuelanalysis.com, Jan 17th 2014

95% of Venezuela’s foreign export earnings in Venezuela come from oil sales (archive)

What did President Nicolas Maduro’s announcements during Wednesday’s state of the nation address tell us about the Venezuelan government’s economic agenda for 2014?

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The Scarcity Diaries

By Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com, Nov 6th 2013

Treasure hunting for milk, confronting local hoarders, overpriced Pringles, toilet paper dilemas, and black market rates that are both economically and politically profitable for big business... here are some experiences of food and product scarcity on the ground in Venezuela.

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Scarcity and Starvation? Venezuelan Food FAQs

By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim - Venezuelanalysis.com, Oct 5th 2013

Food products seized from alleged hoarders by the National Guard in June (VTV)

With all the media hype about Venezuela's food shortages this year, I decided to collate a few frequently asked questions about the food situation here, and set out to answer them.

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What the Statistics Tell Us about Venezuela in the Chavez Era

By Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com, Nov 30th 2012

In the lead up to Venezuela’s presidential election earlier this year, the picture painted in most private media was that of a country falling apart. But a brief look at the statistics offers a very different story, one that helps explain why the majority of the Venezuelan people keep re-electing a government that, according to the private media, is driving the country into the ground.

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Revolutionary Democracy in the Economy? Venezuela’s Worker Control Movement and the Plan Socialist Guayana

By Ewan Robertson - Venezuelanalysis.com , Aug 3rd 2012

An outdoor worker assembly in Alcasa, August 2011 (Prensa Alcasa)

In this in-depth investigative analysis, Ewan Robertson evaluates the advances and setbacks of the worker control movement in Venezuela, and what Venezuela's experience in worker control means for the Bolivarian revolution and movements for radical social change worldwide.

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Demystifying Venezuela’s Inflation: The Opposition’s Red Herring

By Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com, Sep 30th 2011

An open air, or roving Mercal, with state produced products in the foreground (Mercal).

In local opposition and international mass media inflation is the buzzword, and because of it, Venezuela is clearly a mess, life is hopeless, and the government has got to go. Yet is inflation really the big evil it’s made out to be? How much does it impact on the lives of Venezuelans? How much worse is it, really, under Chavez, and what is the government trying to do about it and the food situation?

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If Venezuela were Measured by the Majority

By Tamara Pearson – Venezuelanalysis.com, Dec 30th 2010

What real democracy looks like: A communal council in Merida votes for its electoral commission in July 2010 (Tamara Pearson).

When Newsweek ranked Venezuela last out of 100 countries for “economic dynamism” it had a certain kind of economy and benchmarks in mind. Venezuela is constantly attacked and demonised by U.S based “studies”, “experts”, and “reports”, but what if its economy and political life were to be measured according to the benchmarks of the Venezuelan majority?

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From Agribusiness to Agroecology? An Analysis of Venezuela’s Nationalization of AgroIsleña

By Juan Reardon – Venezuelanalysis.com, Oct 19th 2010

A bicyclist passes by an AgroIsleña distribution center (Globovision)

With the nationalization of AgroIsleña, the Venezuelan state has taken an important step in the struggle to bring social and economic factors under greater control of the Venezuelan people and out of the hands of private, profit-driven firms. What is yet to be understood is what ecological factors will be considered as the AgroPatria project moves forward.

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Venezuela's Co-op Boom

By Michael Fox - Yes! Magazine, May 22nd 2007

To end poverty, put poor people in charge of their livelihood. Venezuela's co-op boom turns the jobless into worker/owners.

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Venezuela’s Cooperative Revolution

By Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone - Dollars & Sense, Jul 29th 2006

Cooperatives are at the center of Venezuela’s new economic model. They have the potential to fulfill a number of the aims of the Bolivarian revolution, including combating unemployment, promoting durable economic development, competing peacefully with conventional capitalist firms, and advancing Chávez’s still-being-defined socialism.

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Poverty Rates In Venezuela: Getting The Numbers Right

By Mark Weisbrot, Luis Sandoval, David Rosnick - CEPR, May 26th 2006

Over the past year, the statement that poverty in Venezuela has increased under the government of President Hugo Chávez has appeared in scores of major newspapers, on major television and radio programs. These statements have only rarely been contested or corrected. A careful analysis of Venezuela's poverty rate, though, shows a decline during the Chavez presidency.

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In Venezuela, Oil Sows Emancipation

By Luciano Wexell Severo - Rebelion.org, Mar 20th 2006

Seven economic mechanisms of the Chavez government account for the fact that, since 2004 and in spite of the strong growth in oil prices, the non-oil GDP grew significantly faster than the oil GDP, demonstrating the positive impact of oil exports on activities not directly related to crude extraction.

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The New Cooperative Movement In Venezuela’s Bolivarian Process

By Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, Dec 17th 2005

Spaces for small enterprises, especially cooperatives, have been opened by a great number of Venezuelan local governments, public institutions, and enterprises, including Venezuela’s oil company, PDVSA. The cooperative production model has increasingly come to define the development strategies of the “Bolivarian Revolution.”

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