How much redistribution and poverty reduction is being accomplished in Latin America through social spending, subsidies, and taxes? Standard fiscal incidence analyses applied to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay using a comparable methodology yields the following results....

Conventional wisdom states that fiscal policy redistributes little in Latin America. Lower tax revenues and – above all – lower and less progressive transfers have been identified as the main cause. Existing studies show that, while in Europe the distribution of all transfers combined (cash...

Fiscal policy can change poverty and inequality substantially or slightly depending on the government’s redistributive effort. We develop a diagnostic framework to assess how aligned fiscal policies are with supporting a minimum living standard and human capital accumulation, as well as with...

Inequality and poverty fell sharply in many Latin American countries during a decade in which voters in ten countries chose left-leaning leaders. Are these developments related? Using data for 18 Latin American countries, this paper presents econometric evidence that social democratic regimes in...

Between 2000 and 2009, the Gini coefficient declined in 13 of 17 Latin American countries for which comparable data exist. The decline was statistically significant and robust to changes in the time interval, inequality measures and data sources. In depth country studies for Argentina, Brazil,...

We assess inequality of opportunity in educational achievement in six Latin American countries, employing two waves of PISA data (2006 and 2009). By means of a non-parametric approach using a decomposable inequality index, GE(0), we rank countries according to their degree of inequality of...

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...

The distributional impact of the structural pension reform in Latin American countries has been largely absent in the economic debate. However, this reform may widen inequality in old-age and reduce welfare. In this paper we study the consequences of implementing a multi-pillar system in one of...

This paper presents empirical results of a wide range of multidimensional poverty measures for: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Uruguay, for the period 1992–2006. Six dimensions are analysed: income, child attendance at school, education of the household head, sanitation,...

Between 2000 and 2006, the Gini coefficient declined in 12 of the 17 Latin American countries for which data are available. Why has inequality declined? Have the changes in inequality been driven by market forces such as the demand and supply for labor with different skills? Or have governments...