Declining inequality in Latin America in the 2000s: the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico

By Nora Lustig, L. López-Calva, Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez. 2012

147 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Between 2000 and 2010, the Gini coefficient declined in 13 of 17 Latin American countries. 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, and Mexico suggest two main phenomena underlie this trend: a fall in the premium to skilled labor and more progressive government transfers. The fall in the premium to skills resulted from a combination of supply, demand, and institutional factors. Their relative importance depends on the country.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/25ebd6a7612e11c5f41fdac77c9908a3cb76cc22

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In Economics and Econometrics

1. Leonardo Gasparini
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1. Leonardo Gasparini
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Citations in the corpus

• DOES GOVERNMENT SPENDING AFFECT INCOME INEQUALITY? A META‐REGRESSION ANALYSIS (2017, unknown): “Literature Review There is much evidence to suggest that at least some types of government spending have tended to lower income inequality in many countries and regions of the world (e.g. Goni et al 2011; Lustig 2011, 2015; Lustig et al 2013; Martinez Vazquez et al 2012).”
• The Strugglers: The New Poor in Latin America? (2014, unknown): “Source: Lustig et al. (2012).”
• The Impact of Taxes and Social Spending on Inequality in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay: An Overview (2013, unknown): “Although inequality has been falling since 2000 (Lustig, López-Calva, and Ortiz-Juarez, 2013), Latin America is still one of the regions with the highest degree of inequality in the world (Ferreira and Ravallion, 2008).”
• Modifying Argentina: GM soy and socio-environmental change (2014, background): “Increased social spending, in particular cash transfer programs such as Jefas y Jefes de Hogar Desocupados (Unemployed Household Heads program) and the Asignación Familiar por Hijo (a monthly allowance for unemployed families with children), have had a positive impact in reducing income inequality (”
• Recent trends in inequality and poverty in developing countries (2013, background): “The strong expansion of public transfers accounts to a large share of the fall in income inequality in Brazil (Azevedo et al., 2011; Barros et al., 2010; Bérgolo et al., 2011; Lustig et al., 2012).”
• Caught in the Middle? The Economics of Middle-Income Traps (2017, unknown): “See Cornia (2012) and Lustig et al. (2012) for a more detailed discussion of what accounts for the reduction in inequality in Brazil during the past two decades. policy standpoint) when the slowdown has occurred and the economy has settled to a stable equilibrium in a context where multiple…”
• A vulnerability approach to the definition of the middle class (2011, unknown): “13See for example [20, 21].”
• Income inequality and violent crime : evidence from Mexico's drug war (2014, unknown): “Second, while there have been major advances in reducing income inequality in Mexico over the last 15 years, with a decline from 0.547 to 0.475 in the Gini coefficient for the distribution of household per capita income (Lustig et al. 2013), there is heterogeneity across regions.”