This paper documents patterns and recent developments on income inequality in Latin America (LA). New comparative … international evidence confirms that LA is a region of high inequality, although maybe not the highest in the world. Income … inequality has fallen in the 2000s, suggesting a turning point from the substantial increases of the 1980s and 1990s. The fall in …

offset the poverty-reducing impact of cash transfers. When one includes the in-kind transfers in education and health, valued … comparable methodology yields the following results. Direct taxes and cash transfers reduce inequality and poverty by nontrivial … at government costs, they reduce inequality in all countries by considerably more than cash transfers, reflecting their …

Fiscal policy can change poverty and inequality substantially or slightly depending on the government’s redistributive … and human capital accumulation, as well as with reducing inequality. The Commitment to Equity Assessment (CEQ) evaluates … independent evaluations. CEQ relies on inequality, poverty and tax and benefit incidence analyses. …

Inequality and poverty fell sharply in many Latin American countries during a decade in which voters in ten countries … econometric evidence that social democratic regimes in Brazil and Chile were more successful at reducing inequality and poverty … Venezuela started the 1990-2008 sample window with lower levels of inequality, so to some extent recent reductions in inequality …

, indirect taxes and subsidies, and social spending (cash and food transfers and in-kind transfers in education and health). The … the country. When in-kind transfers in education and health are added, however, the bottom six deciles are net recipients …We apply a standard tax and benefit incidence analysis to estimate the impact on inequality and poverty of direct taxes …