The distribution of income in Central America

Thomas (Tim) Gindling and Juan Diego Trejos
Additional contact information
Juan Diego Trejos: Universidad de Costa Rica

No 13-01, UMBC Economics Department Working Papers from UMBC Department of Economics

Abstract: We document changes in income and earnings inequality in the five Central American countries from the early 1990s to 2009. In the 1990s Costa Rica had the most equal distribution of income in Central America, and one of the most equal distributions of income in Latin America. At the other extreme, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua were among the most unequal countries in Latin America. Inequality in El Salvador was between these extremes. Then, in the first decade of the 21st century inequality in El Salvador and Nicaragua decreased while inequality in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras increased. By 2009 levels of inequality in El Salvador and Nicaragua were similar to those in Costa Rica. In this paper, we examine why income and earning inequality differs between the five Central American countries, and why inequality decreased in El Salvador and Nicaragua but increased in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras

Keywords: income inequality; Central America; labour income. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 O15 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lam and nep-ltv
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_13_01.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Distribution of Income in Central America (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:umb:econwp:1301

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in UMBC Economics Department Working Papers from UMBC Department of Economics UMBC Department of Economics 1000 Hilltop Circle Baltimore MD 21250, USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christelle Viauroux ().