This paper summarizes a study of changes in per-capita income, monetary poverty, and income distribution in 9,045 subnational administrative units of nine Latin American countries between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s. The results largely support spatial convergence of mean household incomes, although the estimates indicate it has been slow. Territorial inequality is found to be persistent and reduces the pro-poor effect of local income growth. Although national-context specific, the estimates also indicate that territorial development dynamics are influenced by the structural features of the territories. In view of the evidence, territorial development policies in Latin America seem well warranted. Ó 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/3.0/).
Place‐based policy is both ubiquitous and widely criticised. The conventional economic case against place‐targeted interventions is strong, relegating its application to a narrow range of cases of immobile labour resources, market imperfections and/or other externalities. However, both internationally and domestically, equity considerations lead to policies and programmes for disadvantaged regions and their populations. Budget constraints and accountability suggest a selection or ‘triage’ process targeting places with the highest returns in contributing to social welfare. Furthermore, the challenges facing rural areas may be fundamentally different in developed from developing countries. This article proposes a framework for assessing places appropriate for place‐based policies, using the examples of Canada, Chile and Peru.
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