Inequality in Latin America: A global measurement

Abstract

This article combines individual data from household surveys in the Latin American countries to obtain a regional income vector and analyse its distribution and recent changes.

Determinants of income inequality reduction in the Latin American countries

“…Meanwhile, Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peru, the Plurinational State of Bolivia and Uruguay display lower levels of inequality. These results largely coincide with studies by Martín (2008), Amarante, Galván and Mancero (2016), and Amarante and Jiménez (2016), among others.…”

“…The Theil index is used to quantify income inequality in Latin America, since it fulfils the properties described above and has been used in a good number of studies (Villaverde, 1996;Duro, 2004;Goerlich and Mas, 2004;Martín, 2008;others, 2013, andAmarante, Galván andMancero, 2016, among others).…”

More unequal or less? A review of global, regional and national income inequality

“…These results indicate that the countries' internal dynamics, linked to their social, institutional and political realities, is more relevant for the consideration of regional inequality than dynamics between countries (such as those linked to migration or trade). These results are similar to those found by Amarante, Galván and Mancero (2016) for the region. Nonetheless, each country's contribution to global inequality depends mainly on its share in total household income in the region, hence the importance of Brazil and Mexico, which have a very heavy weight in the decomposition (see table A1.2 of the annex).…”

“…These results show that living conditions among Latin American people are relatively more uniform today than they were a decade ago, although the differences in country per capita incomes are larger. The decrease in global inequality in the region, together with the absolute prevalence of intra-country inequality and its deconcentrating effect, are similar to, although more accentuated than, the findings reported by Gasparini and Gluzmann (2012) relative to 1992-2006 and those reported by Amarante, Galván and Mancero (2016).…”

“…This indicates that the two movements observed in the period have opposite effects on inequality: average income growth has been unequal, but the change in the structure of income has more than offset this effect. 12 In summary, as reported in Amarante, Galván and Mancero (2016) for 2002-2012, the regional inequality indicators dropped sharply in 2002-2014, which indicates that the relative differences across the population regionwide are smaller than a decade ago. The reduction in inequality within countries is what basically explains the drop in global inequality across the region; and it is mainly the change in the structure of income (the distribution effect) that explains this.…”