Declining Inequality in Latin America A Decade of Progress?

by Lopez-Calva, Luis Felipe; Lustig, Nora Claudia

• ISBN13: 9780815704102
• ISBN10: 0815704100
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-05-28
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Summary

Latin America is often singled out for its high and persistent income inequality. Toward the end of the 1990s, however, income concentration began to fall across the region. Of the seventeen countries for which comparable data are available, twelve have experienced a decline, particularly since 2000. This book is among the first efforts to understand what happened in these countries and why.Led by editors Felipe López-Calva and Nora Lustig, a panel of distinguished economists undertakes in-depth analyses of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. In addition, they provide essential background in the form of overviews of the relationship between markets and inequality, the political economy of redistribution, and the evolution of income inequality in the advanced industrialized economies. Two factors account for much of the decline in inequality: a decrease in the wage gap between skilled and low-skilled labor, and an increase in government transfers targeted to the poor.Thanks to the timeliness and sophistication of these essays, Declining Inequality in Latin America is likely to become a standard reference in its field.

Author Biography

Luis F. Lopez-Calva is chief economist at the Regional Bureau of Latin Ameria and the Carribbean of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Nora Lustig is Samuel Z. Stone Professr of Latin American Economics at Tulane University and a nonresident fellow at the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Explaining the Decline in Inequality in Latin America: Technological Change, Educational Upgrading, and Democracy	p. 1
Labor Earnings Inequality: The Demand for and Supply of Skills	p. 25
The Political Economy of Redistributive Policies	p. 39
The Dynamics of Income Concentration in Developed and Developing Countries: A View from the Top	p. 72
A Distribution in Motion: The Case of Argentina	p. 100
Markets, the State, and the Dynamics of Inequality in Brazil	p. 134
Mexico: A Decade of Falling Inequality: Market Forces or State Action?	p. 175
Inequality in Post-Structural Reform Peru: The Role of Market Forces and Public Policy	p. 218
Contributors	p. 245
Index	p. 247
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