Declining inequality in Latin America : a decade of progress? / Luis F. López-Calva and Nora Lustig, editors.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Explaining the decline in inequality in Latin America : technological change, educational upgrading, and democracy / Luis F. López-Calva and Nora Lustig -- Labor earnings inequality : the demand for and supply of skills / Jaime Kahhat -- The political economy of redistributive policies / James A. Robinson -- The dynamics of income concentration in developed and developing countries : a view from the top / Facundo Alvaredo and Thomas Piketty -- A distribution in motion : the case of Argentina / Leonardo Gasparini and Guillermo Cruces -- Markets, the state, and the dynamics of inequality in Brazil / Ricardo Barros ... [and others] -- Mexico : a decade of falling inequality : market forces or state action? / Gerardo Esquivel, Nora Lustig, and John Scott -- Inequality in post-structural reform Peru : the role of market forces and public policy / Miguel Jaramillo and Jaime Saavedra.

Latin America is often singled out for its high and persistent income inequality. Toward the end of the 1990s, however, income concentration began to fall across the region. Of the seventeen countries for which comparable data are available, twelve have experienced a decline, particularly since 2000. This book is among the first efforts to understand what happened in these countries and why. Led by editors Felipe López-Calva and Nora Lustig, a panel of distinguished economists undertakes in-depth analyses of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. In addition, they provide essential background in the form of overviews of the relationship between markets and inequality, the political economy of redistribution, and the evolution of income inequality in the advanced industrialized economies. Two factors account for much of the decline in inequality: a decrease in the wage gap between skilled and low-skilled labor, and an increase in government transfers targeted to the poor. Thanks to the timeliness and sophistication of these essays, Declining Inequality in Latin America is likely to become a standard reference in its field.