This open access volume identifies the common and specific aspects of social mechanisms that generate inequalities, through comparative analyses of different dimensions in which inequalities are expressed. It includes studies on social inequalities in 5 European and 5 Latin American countries,...

Preface -- List of acronyms -- Geography and the colonial legacy -- Export led growth and the origins of protectionism -- Import substitution industrialization (ISI) -- Debt crises and the lost decade -- Poverty : origins and persistence -- The political economy of Latin American development --...