Inequality Trends and their Determinants: Latin America over 1990-2010

Giovanni Cornia

Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa

Abstract: The paper reviews the steady and widespread decline in income inequality which has taken place in most of Latin America over 2002-10 and which––if continued for another 2-3 years––would reduce the average regional income inequality to pre-liberalization levels. The paper then focuses on the factors, which may explain such inequality decline. A review of the literature and an econometric test indicate that a few complementary factors played an important role in this regard, including a drop in the skill premium following a rapid expansion of secondary education, and the adoption of a new development model by a growing number of left-of-centre governments which emphasizes fiscally-prudent but more equitable macroeconomic, tax, social expenditure and labour policies. For the region as a whole, improvements in terms of trade, migrant remittances, FDI and world growth played a less important role than expected although their impact was perceptible in countries where such transactions were sizeable.

Keywords: income inequality; human capital inequality; policy regimes; external conditions; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 E6 H53 I28 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-lab, nep-lam and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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Working Paper: Inequality Trends and their Determinants: Latin America over 1990-2010 (2012)
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