Has Latin American Inequality Changed Direction?

Luis Bértola (Universidad de la República, Uruguay)Professor at the Economic and Social History Program, director of the Ph.D. and Master Programme, since 2005; Visiting Professor at the University of Gothenburg since 2010; Member of the Bureau of the International Economic History Association 2009-2015; CEPR Associate; member of the Figuerola Institute, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid; Director of the Montevideo-Oxford Latin American Economic History Data Base. Was editor of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History Review. Co-author of The Economic Development of Latin America since Independence (Oxford University Press, 2012) and of several articles and book chapters of international publications during the last years. Has been advisor for ECLAC, IADB, ILO, NU and several national institutions in Uruguay and Latin America.Jeffrey G. Williamson (Harvard University and University of Wisconsin-Madison)The Laird Bell Professor of Economics, emeritus, Harvard University and Honorary Fellow, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Williamson is past President of the Economic History Association (1994-1995), Chairman of the Harvard Economics Department (1997-2000), and Master of Harvard’s Mather House (1986-1993).

• INTRODUCTION.- Chapter1. Long-run inequality trends and cycles and the recent inequality downturn in Latin America.- PART I. LONG-RUN TRENDS.- Chapter 2. Functional Inequality in Latin America: News from the Twentieth Century.- Chapter 3. The Political Economy of Income Inequality in Chile since 1850.- Chapter 4. What Human Heights Can Explain about the Evolution of Living Standards and Inequality in Latin America: the Case of Mexican Females and Males, 1850-1992.- Chapter 5. Long-run Human Development in Mexico: 1895-2010.- Chapter 6. Inequality, Institutions, and Long-Term Development: A Perspective from Brazilian Regions.- Chapter 7. Historical perspectives on regional income inequality in Brazil, 1872-2000.- Chapter 9. Racial Inequality in Brazil from Independence to Present.- Chapter 10. The lingering face of gender inequality in Latin America.- Chapter 11. Fiscal Redistribution in Latin America since the Nineteenth Century.- PART II. THE RECENT INEQUALITY DOWNTURN.- Chapter 12. Inequality in Latin America.- Chapter 13. The Inequality Story in Latin America and the Caribbean: Searching for an Explanation.- Chapter 14. The Political Economy of Inequality at the Top in Contemporary Chile.- Chapter 15. Structural change and the fall of income inequality in Latin America - Agricultural development, inter-sectoral duality and the Kuznets curve.- Chapter 16. Fiscal policy and inequality in Latin America 1960-2012.- Chapter 17. Challenges for Social Policy in a Less Favorable Macroeconomic Context.