Inequality Stagnation in Latin America in the Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis

Cord, Louise ; Barriga Cabanillas, Oscar ; Lucchetti, Leonardo ; Rodriguez Castelan, Carlos ; Sousa, Liliana D. ; Valderrama, Daniel

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESS TO EDUCATION;    AGRICULTURAL EMPLOYMENT;    ANDEAN REGION;    ANNUAL CHANGE;    ANNUAL GROWTH;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7146
RP-ID  :  WPS7146

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Over the past decade (2003-12), LatinAmerica has experienced strong income growth and a notablereduction in income inequality, with the region's Ginicoefficient falling from 55.6 to 51.8. Previous studies havewarned about the sustainability of such a decline, and thispaper presents evidence of stagnation in the pace ofreduction of income inequality in Latin America since 2010.This phenomenon of stagnation is robust to differentmeasures of inequality and is largely attributable to theimpact of the Global Financial Crisis on Mexico and CentralAmerica, where inequality rose after 2010 as labor incomerecovered. Moreover, this paper finds evidence that much ofthe continuation of inequality reduction after the crisis atthe country level has been due to negative or zero incomegrowth for households in the top of the income distribution,and lower growth of the incomes of the poorest households.The crisis also highlighted weaknesses in the region'slabor markets and the heavy reliance on public transfers toredistribute, underscoring the vulnerability of theregion's recent social gains to global economic conditions.