Declining Inequality in Latin America: A Decade of Progress? - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815704100 ISBN 13: 9780815704102

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 2010

Synopsis

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 Lopez-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.

About this title

About the Author

Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva is chief economist at the Regional Bureau of Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He previously taught at the Graduate School of Public Affairs of the Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico City, at the Universidad de la Americas en Puebla, and at El Colegio de Mexico. Nora Lustig is Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics at Tulane University and a nonresident fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. She previously served as director of the Poverty Group at UNDP, as senior advisor and chief of the Poverty and Inequality Unit at the Inter-American Development Bank, and as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her books include Mexico: The Remaking of an Economy (Brookings, 1992), which was selected as an Outstanding Academic Book by Choice magazine.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0815704100
• ISBN 13: 9780815704102
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 263
• Editor: Lopez-Calva Luis Felipe