Growth, poverty and the distribution of labor earnings in Brazil, Chile and Mexico

Lack of employment and the deterioration of labor income are critical issues for the development of Latin American countries. The persistence of high incidence of poverty and inequality may be largely explained by the poor performance of labor markets. The motivation of this paper is the idea that poverty reduction is sustainable when labor markets provide expanding opportunities to the poor. In that sense, the links between economic growth, employment creation and the distribution of labor earnings are central to the discussion.