Declining social and economic inequalities since the late 1990s coincided with several basic shifts in Latin America's political landscape, including an electoral turn to the left and a revival of social mobilization from below. These shifts helped to 'repoliticize' inequality and return...

This paper aims to advance understanding about the relationship between taxation and inequality in developing countries, focusing on the recent experience of Latin America. Although the tax system was regressive in the 1990s, tax changes promoted equality in the first decade of the 2000s. In...

This paper proposes to understand a singular but salient factor that enables the wealthy to deflect their tax burden downwards: elites' political leverage to shape legislation via their capacity to influence political actors and policy outcomes. The analysis sheds light on alternative mechanisms...

Latin America has seen vast improvements in gender educational and health equality. Favourable supply-side conditions, however, have not translated into greater gender economic equality, a process that also depends on structural economic change and global macroeconomic conditions. In this paper,...

Inequality of opportunity : what it is, how it can be measured, and why it matters -- A human opportunity index for children -- Uses and policy applications of the human opportunity index -- Inequality of economic opportunity in seven Latin American countries -- Inequality of opportunity in...

This paper presents an incidence analysis of both social spending and taxation for seven Latin American countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The analysis shows that Latin American countries are headed de facto toward a minimalist welfare state similar to the one in the United...

Latin American countries are generally characterized as displaying high income and earnings inequality overall along with high inequality by gender, race, and ethnicity. However, the latter phenomenon is not a major contributor to the former phenomenon. Using household survey data from four...

Income inequality in Latin America ranks among the highest in the world. It can be traced back to the unequal distribution of assets (especially land and education) in the region. But the extent to which asset inequality translates into income inequality depends on the redistributive capacity of...