Economic and social polarization in Colombia

José Antonio Ocampo and Natalie Gómez-Arteaga

Chapter 11 in Economic Development, Economic Growth and Income Distribution, 2025, pp 209-228 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The dual-track reform agenda adopted in Colombia in the early 1990s, which mixed the emphasis on social rights embedded in the country's 1991 Constitution with economic liberalization, is analyzed. This shows that the effects have been positive for social inclusion: improvements in access to social services leading to rapidly falling poverty as measured by unsatisfied basic needs and multidimensional poverty, and a more moderate decline in income poverty. In contrast, market liberalization generated weak results: slower and more volatile economic growth than during the period of state-led industrialization, except in the 2003–14 period thanks to a terms-of-trade boom. A major effect of weak economic performance that affected the social dimension was the incapacity to guarantee decent employment and the persistence of informal activities with low levels of productivity. Furthermore, belying the expectation that the dual-track reform agenda would accelerate regional convergence, the opposite took place.

Keywords: Colombia; Economic liberalization; Social inclusion; Economic dynamics; Poverty; Regional development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803929903
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