Despite the recovery of economic growth in Latin America during the 1990s, rising unemployment, high informality rates and sluggish wages lie at the root of high inequality and poverty. This paper looks at changes in hourly earnings from the early 1990s to the early 2000s in three relatively...

Since the 1970s, Chile has exhibited a highly skewed income distribution accompanied with strong fluctuations over time. Although income distribution worsened notably in the 1970s-80s, a significant improvement was recorded in the first half of the 1990s, resulting from better economic and...

We address the long standing question of whether production factors are paid their marginal products. We propose a new approach that circumvents the need to specify production functions and to compare marginal products to factor payments. Our approach is based on a simple equation that directly...

Chile, in the last 15 years, has shown remarkable results in terms of growth, poverty reduction and democratic governance. This paper reviews the structural changes that were behind these positive outcomes, as well as the pending challenges for Chile’s development. Also shows that Chile did...

In the Latin American context, Chile has the highest level of per capita income and the human development index, though the distribution of income is quite unequal. Unlike Uruguay, Chile has one of the more unequal income distributions of the region. In 2003, Chile had Gini Coefficient of 8.5...

In this paper we look at the income distribution by cohort in Chile. We construct a synthetic panel from cross section surveys and estimate the income distribution for cohorts born between 1902 and 1978. We then decompose the evolution of these distributions into age, year and cohort effects....

This paper analyses household income mobility in Chile between 1996 and 2001. Compared to industrialized and most developing countries, mobility has been quite high. The purpose of this paper is to apply a binomial probit model and split analysis into assessment of individuals and households on...

Using household surveys that cover more than 50 years of the political and economic history of Chile, we investigate changes in the shape of the distribution of income in Chile, and in the composition of top 10% and top 1% incomes. In line with international evidence, top incomes concentration...

This study measures the impact of changes in the income determinants on inequality in the 1990 to 2003 period, in order to answer the question of why income distribution as a whole has not changed. The methodology utilized are micro-simulations of income distribution, which is the most...