Ever since the USSR collapsed two decades ago, a group of scholars has been meeting every summer in Miami to discuss the reality in Cuba and what the Castro government might do to revive its troubled economy.

This year’s conference promises to be the liveliest yet. Migration reform means Cubans no longer need permission from their own government to travel abroad, so more Cuba-based experts than ever will attend the event, organized by the Washington-based Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE).

“This is going to inject a different dynamic into the ASCE meeting different in ages, races, genders and disciplines. It will also be more diverse in terms of the ideological approach of participants,” said Ted Henken, a sociologist who took over the helm at ASCE last year and continues to broaden its reach.

At least half a dozen Cuban residents are expected at ASCE’s Aug. 1-3 meeting, including Armando Nova of the University of Havana’s Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy; Karina Galvez of Convivencia magazine, and José Luís Leyva Cruz, a computer science professor at the University of Camagüey.

Also expected from the island are Lenier González and Roberto Viega, co-editors of the Catholic publication Espacio Laical; independent lawyers Laritza Diversent and René Gómez Manzano, as well as physicist and political activist Antonio Rodiles, coordinator of the Estado de SATS forum, among others.

Some 100 people will be at ASCE’s 23rd annual meeting, whose theme is “Reforming Cuba?”

Participants will discuss such topics as government policy changes, cooperatives, bloggers and the Internet, self-employment, tourism and Cuban-Venezuelan relations since the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Keynote speaker is George J. Borjas, professor of economic and social policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School and a specialist in labor economics. The Cuba-born scholar is likely to provoke debate with his long-held positions advocating a reduction in immigration rates to the United States.

The meeting comes amid growing questions over the pace and scope of market-oriented reforms in Cuba. President Raúl Castro has been trying to slash government payrolls and speed economic growth, but many wonder whether the changes are too slow, too small and too fragmented.

Henken said those reforms so far “are significantly different but not sufficiently different” from past economic policies. For example, the government no longer restricts private restaurants to only 12 chairs and now lets them hire employees. Yet it still limits the self-employed to a select list of what he calls “mostly unproductive” jobs, which generally exclude professional services.

“Occupations should be limited only by people’s imaginations, not by a list,” he said.

Two signs that reforms have not changed the economy enough: Slow economic growth Cuba just cut back its projections for this year from 3.6% to less than 3% and continued high emigration, contributing to a drop in Cuba’s population estimated at 84,000 in 2012.

“Cuba lives largely off Miami,” said Hen-ken, referring to hefty remittances sent back by Cubans in the United States and exile visits that prop up the island’s economy. “That’s quite ironic and an unfortunate sign of the lack of dynamism of the internal economy.”

Henken assumed the presidency of ASCE last summer from Rafael Romeu, a senior IMF economist who began efforts to broaden the group’s reach beyond mostly older Cuban-American economists. Romeu now serves as ASCE’s vice-president.

The first non-Cuban and non-economist to run ASCE, Henken teaches at City University of New York’s Baruch College and chairs its Department of Black and Latino Studies. He writes the blog “El Yuma.”  In March, Henken coordinated the New York and Washington visits of Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez on her first trip to the United States, in what he calls “one of my proudest collaborations as a public intellectual.”

In June, he also helped host four young Cuban bloggers in New York, after they took part in meetings of the Latin American Studies Association in Washington. That group included black, Marxist and gender activist Yas-mín Portales, and University of Havana digital journalism professor Elaine Diaz, who writes the blog “La Polemica Digital.”

Details: Rafael Romeu, Vice-President, Asso-ciation of the Study of the Cuban Economy, PO  Box 28267, Washington, DC 20038-8267. Email: asce@ascecuba.org. URL: www.asce.org.