Números Publicados

After a decade of strong progress toward the goal of reducing the high levels of income disparities, there are clear signs of a deceleration in the pace of inequality reduction in Latin America. This paper argues that the deceleration is the result of two set of reasons.

This paper offers for the first time income shares of the top 10% and the bottom 40% of the labour force for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela in the period 1900-2011. The main findings are: i) over this period the top 10% share is, on average, 51.3% and the bottom 40% share 13.2%; ii) in the last thirty years the gap between both tails widened (54.6% vs.

This paper examines several dimensions of inequality in theLatin American region focusing on top income shares and Gini coefficients, top wealth shares and the size wealth distribution. Itc ompares inequality of income according to household surveys and income inequality using tax data showing the former tends to underestimate top shares and gini coefficients and therefore the extent of inequality. The social structure is assesed for economic elites, the middle class and the working poor.

A reduction in the wage premium for skilled labor –and a consistent reduction of overall wage inequality–has played an important role in explaining the fall of income inequality in Latin America during the 2000-2014 period. Consistent with that pattern, wage inequality declined in Mexico since 2000. This paper investigates the possible channels on why the wages of high-skilled workers have declined.