Bulmer-Thomas V., Coatsworth J., Cortes-Conde R. The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America: Volume 2, The Long Twentieth Century
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722 Bibliographical Essays
of Capitalism in Argentina, 1850–1930,” in Alice Teichova, Ginette Kurgan-Van
Hentenryk, and Dieter Ziegler, eds., Banking, Trade, and Industry, Europe, America,
and Asia from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 1997).
There are also a number of articles that employ econometric techniques to mea-
sure the independent impact of banks and securities markets on Latin American
industrial structure and productivity growth. See, for example, Stephen Haber,
“Banks, Financial Markets, and Industrial Development: Lessons from the Eco-
nomic Histories of Brazil and Mexico,” in Jos
´
e Antonio Gonz
´
alez et al., eds.,
Macroeconomic Reform in Latin America: The Second Stage (Chicago, 2003); Noel
Maurer and Stephen Haber, “Institutional Change and Economic Growth: Banks,
Financial Markets, and Mexican Industrialization,” in Jeffrey L. Bortz and Stephen
H. Haber, eds., The Mexican Economy, 1870–1930; and Stephen Haber, “The Effi-
ciency Consequences of Institutional Change: Financial Market Regulation and
Industrial Productivity Growth in Brazil, 1866–1934,” in John H. Coatsworth and
Alan M. Taylor, eds., Latin America and the World Economy Since 1800 (Cambridge,
MA, 1998).
Oneofthe most interesting features of the literature produced over the past
fifteen years is that so much of it focuses on the period prior to 1940. The period
since World War II has received surprisingly little attention. In large part, this
is a function of the fact that Latin American governments opened their markets
to foreign-produced manufactures in the 1980s, thereby bringing to an end a
century-long experiment with industrial development behind protective tariffs.
The result has been a complete reorientation of Latin American industry (the
subject of the article in this volume by Victor Bulmer-Thomas). As a consequence,
economists have been more keen to study the effects of trade openness than they
have been to study the failed history of protectionism. One notable (and very
welcome) exception to this trend is the recent volume edited by Enrique C
´
ardenas,
Jos
´
e Antonio Ocampo, and Rosemary Thorp, An Economic History of Twentieth-
Century Latin America,vol. 3, Industrialization and the State in Latin America – The
Postwar Years (cited earlier). This volume is an extremely useful jumping-off point
for further research into the post-1940 period, as are the relevant chapters of Victor
Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence, 2nd
ed. (Cambridge, 2003).
CHAPTER 14 (MIGUEL SZ
´
EKELY
AND ANDR
´
ES MONTES)
Many references are possible for a subject as broad as poverty in Latin America.
The ones cited here aim to provide only a general overview of the bibliography on
the topic. The sources selected are considered the most significant for the objectives
given in our chapter.
The lack of reliable historical data on poverty for Latin America appears as
the first and most important obstacle for undertaking time-series studies of the
region. Flawed or scarce information is a common problem in the analysis of
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Bibliographical Essays 723
long-term trends in poverty, inequality, and income distribution. Oscar Altimir,
“Income Distribution Statistics in Latin America and Their Reliability,” Revista de
la Asociaci
´
on Internacional para la Investigaci
´
on de la Riqueza y el Ingreso 33 (1987),
provides important insights on this topic. Altimir offers deeper analysis of the
difficulties of elaborating assessments or comparisons presented by data unavail-
ability or unreliability over long periods of time. Data on poverty and inequality
in the region did not appear until the second half of the twentieth century, and
many countries do not undertake periodic surveying practices or statistical analysis.
Articles containing information regarding household-survey practices throughout
the world include Klaus Deininger and Lyn Squire, “A New Data Set Measuring
Income Inequality,” WorldBank Economic Review 10, 3 (September 1996): 565–91;
Angus Deaton, The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach
to Development Policy (Baltimore, MD, 1997); and Martin Ravallion and Shaohua
Chen, “What Can New Survey Data Tell Us about Recent Changes in Distribution
and Poverty?,” The World Bank Economic Review 11,2 (1997): 357–82.
Even though data are scarce, there are many books about Latin American eco-
nomic history. For example, Rosemary Thorp, Progreso, pobreza y exclusi
´
on: una
historia econ
´
omica de Am
´
erica Latina en el siglo XX (Washington, DC, 1998)isone
of the most detailed analyses and among the most useful sources for building on
the historical trends of the evolution of poverty and inequality in Latin America
and the Caribbean during the twentieth century. It provides a complete assessment
of social, political, and economic indicators within the region.
There are also numerous historical studies related to poverty and inequality
in Latin America. For the researcher interested in country comparisons for the
whole region and examinations over broad time periods, a key paper is Oscar
Altimir, “Long-Term Trends of Poverty in Latin American Countries,” Revista de
la Universidad de Chile (2001): 115–55.This article reviews the research on long-term
evolution of poverty undertaken in four selected Latin American countries: Chile,
Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. These countries were chosen mainly because
of data availability, but also because they constitute a representative sample of
distinct Latin American trends on poverty. Other valuable sources consulted on
this topic include Oscar Altimir, “Cambios en la Desigualdad y la Pobreza en
Am
´
erica Latina,” El Trimestre Econ
´
omico 19, 241 (1994): 85–133; Alain De Janvry
and Elizabeth Sadoulet, “Growth, Poverty and Inequality in Latin America: A
Causal Analysis, 1970–1994,” Review of Income and Wealth 46, 3 (2000): 267–87;
Kenneth L. Sokoloff and Stanley L. Engerman, “History Lessons: Institutions,
Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World,” Journal of
Economic Perspectives 14, 3 (Summer 2000): 217–32; and Juan Luis Londo
˜
no and
Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Persistent Poverty and Excess Inequality: Latin America 1970–
1995,” Journal of Applied Economics 3, 1 (May 2000): 93–134.
On this topic, Juan Luis Londo
˜
no and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Persistent Poverty and
Excess Inequality: Latin America 1970–1995” (cited previously) is useful for under-
standing the analysis of poverty throughout the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury. This article contains abundant statistical evidence on poverty and inequality
during this period of time and assesses the changes in aggregate poverty and inequal-
ity that have taken place in Latin America during the past twenty-six years. The
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724 Bibliographical Essays
authors reach the conclusion that poverty and inequality have not declined during
the 1990s despite remarkable improvements at the macroeconomic level. Other
poverty, inequality, and income distribution studies and analyses in the region,
although not particularly considering specific time periods, include Oscar Altimir,
La dimensi
´
on de la pobreza en Am
´
erica Latina (Santiago, 1979); Orazio Attanasio
and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “An Asset-Based Approach to the Analysis of Poverty in Latin
America” (Working Paper no. 376,Inter-American Development Bank, 1999); and
Samuel Morley, La distribuci
´
on del ingreso en Am
´
erica Latina y el Caribe (Mexico
City, 2000).
There is also a wide array of studies on poverty and inequality for specific coun-
tries in Latin America and the Caribbean. For specific country-case discussions, the
following sources were consulted. For Brazil: Albert Fishlow, “Brazilian Size Dis-
tribution of Income,” American Economic Review 62, 2 (1972): 391–402;Marcelo
Cort
´
es Neri, Alexandre Pinto Carvalho, and Edward Joaquim Amadeo, “Assets,
Markets and Poverty in Brazil,” in Orazio Attanasio and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, eds.,
Portrait of the Poor (Washington, DC, 2001); and Angus Maddison, The Politi-
cal Economy of Poverty, Equity and Growth in Brazil and Mexico (London, 1992).
For Colombia: Juan Luis Londo
˜
no, Distribuci
´
on del ingreso y desarrollo econ
´
omico:
Colombia en el siglo XX (Bogot
´
a, 1995). For Peru: Javier Escobal, Jaime Saave-
dra, and M
´
aximo Torero, “Distribution, Access and Complementarity: Capital
of the Poor in Peru,” in Portrait of the Poor (cited previously). For Bolivia: con-
sult George Gray-Molina et al., “Poverty and Assets in Bolivia: What Role Does
Social Capital Play?” in Portrait of the Poor.Oscar Altimir and Luis Beccaria do
a thorough study of the Argentinian situation in “El persistente deterioro de la
distribuci
´
on del ingreso en la Argentina,” Desarrollo Econ
´
omico 40, 160 (2001):
589–618.For Mexico, see Miguel Sz
´
ekely, Hacia una nueva generaci
´
on de pol
´
ıtica
social (Mexico City, 2002); “Poverty and Equity Under ISI: Can Anything Be
Said about It?” (working paper, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, 1997),
and The Economics of Poverty: Inequality and Wealth Accumulation in Mexico (Lon-
don, 1998). Also, see Humberto P
´
anuco-Laguette and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Income
Distribution and Poverty in Mexico,” in Victor Bulmer-Thomas, ed., The New
Economic Model in Latin America and Its Impact on Income Distribution and Poverty
(London, 1996); Garcia Rocha, “Note on Mexican Economic Development and
Income Distribution” (Documento de Trabajo no. VII-90, Centro de Estudios
Econ
´
omicos, El Colegio de M
´
exico, 1990); Joel Bergsman, “Income Distribution
and Poverty in Mexico” (Staff Working Paper no. 395,World Bank, Washington,
DC, 1980); Orazio Attanasio and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Ahorro de los hogares y dis-
tribuci
´
on del Ingreso en M
´
exico,” Economia Mexicana 3, 2 (July–December 1999):
267–338; and Pedro Aspe and Javier Beristain, “Toward a First Estimate of the
Evolution of Inequality in Mexico,” in Pedro Aspe and Paul Sigmund, eds., The
Political Economy of Income Distribution in Mexico (New York, 1984).
Oneofthe most discussed issues among poverty and inequality scholars is the
debate on whether growth reduces or increases inequality. Many theories have
emerged through time; however, no consensus has been reached yet. Some coun-
tries’ experiences tend to support some hypotheses whereas other country cases
refute them. This topic has been widely discussed over time, starting in the
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Bibliographical Essays 725
beginning of the second half of the twentieth century. To build on our argu-
ment, an ample bibliography was consulted. Among the sources we found sup-
porting an argument for the “one-to-one growth-equality relationship” developed
by Simon Kuznets is Sudhir Anand and S. M. R. Kanbur, “The Kuznets Process
and the Inequality-Development Relationship,” Journal of Development Economics
40 (1993): 25–52.Other studies addressing the growth-development relationship
include Irma Adelman and Albert Morris, Economic Growth and Social Equity in
Developing Countries (Stanford, CA, 1973); Barbara Stallings and Wilson Peres,
Growth, Employment and Equity: The Impact of the Economic Reforms in Latin
America and the Caribbean (Washington, DC, 2000); Montek Ahluwalia, “Inequal-
ity, Poverty and Development,” Journal of Development Economics 2 (1976): 307–42;
Montek Ahluwalia, Nicholas Carter, and Hollis Chenery, “Growth and Poverty
in Developing Countries,” Journal of Development Economics” 6 (1979): 299–341;
Nancy Birdsall et al., “Why Low Inequality Spurs Growth: Saving and Investment
by the Poor,” in Andr
´
es Solimano, ed., Social Inequalities: Values, Growth and the
State (Ann Arbor, MI, 1998); David Dollar and Aart Kraay, “Growth Is Good for the
Poor” (Mimeo, Washington, DC); Mattias Lundberg and Lyn Squire, “The Simul-
taneous Evolution of Growth and Inequality” (Mimeograph, Washington, DC,
2000); Eugene Smolensky et al., “Growth Inequality and Poverty: A Cautionary
Note,” Review of Income and Wealth Series 40, 2 (1994): 217–22;John Luke Gallup
et al., “Economic Growth and the Income of the Poor” (Discussion Paper no. 36,
Harvard Institute for International Development, Harvard University, 1999);
Martin Ravallion, “Growth and Poverty: Making Sense of the Current Debate”
(Mimeograph, World Bank Development Research Group, Washington, DC,
2000); Robert Barro, “Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries” (Mimeo-
graph, Harvard University, 1999); Michael Roemer and Mary Kay Gugerty, “Does
Economic Growth Reduce Poverty?” (Discussion Paper no. 4,Harvard Institute
for International Development, Harvard University, 1997); Michael Bruno et al.,
“Equity and Growth in Developing Countries: Old and New Perspectives in the
Policy Issues,” in Vito Tanzi and K. Y. Chu, eds., Income Distribution and High
Quality Growth (Cambridge, MA, 1998); James Foster and Anthony Shorrocks,
“Poverty Orderings,” Econom
´
etrica 56, 1 (1998): 173–7;Jere Behrman, The Debt
Crisis, Structural Adjustment and the Rural Poor (Williamstown, MA, 1990); Stanley
Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff, Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of
Development Among New World Economies (Cambridge, MA, 2002).
Valuable succinct discussions on Latin America and the Caribbean growth-
development are included in James E. Foster and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Is Economic
Growth Good for the Poor? Tracking Low Incomes Using General Means” (Work-
ing Paper no. 453,Inter-American Development Bank, 2001). The authors propose
anew method for evaluating growth effects on poor incomes based on a compari-
son of growth rates for two standards of living: the ordinary mean and a bottom
sensitive general mean. Among other results, they concluded that the incomes of
the poor do not grow on a “one-to-one” basis with increases in average income.
Other papers and collections of essays addressing poverty and inequality are
Anthony Atkinson, “On the Measurement of Inequality,” Journal of Economic The-
ory 2 (1970): 224–63;Jere Behrman, Nancy Birdsall, and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, Poverty
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and Income Inequality in Developing Countries: A Policy Dialogue on the Effects
of Globalization (Paris, 1999); Hollis Chenery and Moshe Syrquin, Patterns of
Development: 1950–1970 (London, 1975); Amartya Sen, On Economic Inequality
(London, 1997); Paul Schultz, “Inequality in the Distribution of Personal Incomes
in the World: How Is It Changing and Why” (Mimeograph, Yale University,
1997); Amartya Sen, “Poverty: An Ordinal Approach,” Econom
´
etrica 44 (1976):
219–31;Miguel Sz
´
ekely and Marianne Hilgert, “What’s Behind the Inequality We
Measure? An Investigation Using Latin American Data” (OCE Working Paper
Series no. 409,Inter-American Development Bank, 1999); Peter Timmer, How
Well Do the Poor Connect to the Growth Process (Cambridge, MA, 1997); James
Foster, Joel Greer, and Erik Thorbecke, “A Class of Decomposable Poverty Indices,”
Econom
´
etrica 52 (1984): 761–6;James Foster and Anthony Shorrocks, “Sub-group
Consistent Poverty Measures,” Econom
´
etrica 59, 3 (1991): 6870–9;Hong Yi Li
et al., “Explaining International and Intertemporal Variations in Income Inequal-
ity,” The Economic Journal 108, 446 (1998): 26–43; and Orazio Attanasio and Miguel
Sz
´
ekely, “An Asset-Based Approach to the Analysis of Poverty in Latin America”
(Working Paper no. 376,Inter-American Development Bank, 1999).
Orazio Attanasio and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, eds., Portrait of the Poor: An Asset-Based
Approach (cited previously) is a comprehensive sourcebook on the condition of the
poor in various Latin American countries. Its main argument is that poverty, or at
least “excess poverty,” in the region is a problem caused mainly by high inequality.
However, income inequality in the region is, to a large extent, a reflection of a
very skewed distribution of income-earning assets, human capital being the most
important. This book provides an in-depth explanation of the highly unequal
distribution of income-earning assets in the region. The asset-based approach con-
siders education as one of the most important human capital assets for overcoming
poverty. For a wider panorama on the changes in educational attainments through
time, or to assess how the distribution of these assets evolved in the region dur-
ing the past century and to examine the process of human and physical capital
asset accumulation in Latin America, we relied on the following. On the topic of
education, Suzanne Duryea and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “The Determinants of School-
ing in Latin America: A Micro-Macro Approach” (Mimeograph, Inter-American
Development Bank, 1999)provides a valuable approach to the issue of schooling
attainment by examining the changes in both the stocks and flows of school-
ing. For data on specific regions, see Jere Behrman, Suzanne Duryea, and Miguel
Sz
´
ekely, “Schooling Investments and Aggregate Conditions: A Household-Survey
Approach for Latin America and the Caribbean” (Working Paper no. 407,Inter-
American Development Bank, 1999), which assesses the effect of macro condi-
tions on schooling attainment trends throughout the world. Jere Behrman, Nancy
Birdsall, and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Economic Reform and Wage Differentials in Latin
America” (Working Paper, Inter-American Development Bank, 2000) portrays
wage differentials in the region (depending on the schooling attainment), hence
completing information for the former section and providing a very important
hint about the returns to each educational degree. Also, George Psacharopulos,
“Time Trends of the Returns to Education: Cross National Evidence,” Economics
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Bibliographical Essays 727
of Education Review 8, 3 (1989): 225–31; and “Returns to Education: A Further
International Update and Implications,” The Journal of Human Resources 20, 4
(Autumn 1985): 583–604 provide valuable information. An updated and succinct
account of the returns to education by the same author is found in Returns to Invest-
ment in Education: A Global Update (Washington, DC, 1993). For the Brazilian
case, see Nancy Birdsall, “Public Inputs and Child Schooling in Brazil,” Journal of
Development Economics 18, 1 (May–June 1985): 67–86.
For analyzing the use of assets throughout the region, consult Suzanne Duryea
and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Labor Markets in Latin America: A Look at the Supply Side,”
Emerging Markets Review 1, 3 (2000), in which the authors present facts about the
connection between demographic transitions and educational changes (size and
quality of labor force) with respect to labor supply, inequality, and unemployment.
The conclusion is that demographics and education significantly improve our
understanding of the overall decline in employment, its changing pattern, and
the rises in wage inequality. The authors prove that Latin America has undergone
significant changes in its age structure and educational profile during the last thirty
years. Also, because there is scarce information on physical capital, the most useful
sources were the WorldBank Development Indicators as well as the Penn Tables.
These two sources are user-friendly and provide periodic summary tables and
extended time series in easy-to-manipulate formats, which proved convenient for
statistical processing.
There are a number of studies that provide overviews on demographic transitions
and education. For discussions on this topic, consult Jere Behrman, “Education,
Health and Demography in Latin America Around the End of the Century: What
Do We Know? What Questions Should Be Explored?” (Mimeograph, Washington,
DC, 1999); Jere Behrman, Suzanne Duryea, and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Decomposing
Fertility Differences Across Regions and Over Time: Is Improved Health More
Important Than Women’s Schooling?” and “Aging and Economic Opportunities:
Major World Regions at the Turn of the Century,” both in Orazio Attanasio
and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, eds., Dynamic Analysis of Household Decision Making in
Latin America (Washington, DC, forthcoming), chapters 7 and 8;Nancy Birdsall,
“Economic Approaches to Population Growth,” in Hollis Chenery and T. N.
Srinivasan, eds., Handbook on Development Economics (Amsterdam, 1988), 477–542;
Michael Kremer and Daniel Chen, “Income Distribution Dynamics with Endoge-
nous Fertility,” American Economic Review (May 1999); Mark Rosenzweig and Paul
Schultz, “The Supply and Demand for Births: Fertility and Its Life Cycle Con-
sequence,” American Economic Review 75, 5 (1985): 992–1015;Mark Rosenzweig
and Paul Schultz, “Fertility and Investments in Human Capital: Estimates of the
Consequences of Imperfect Fertility Control in Malaysia,” Journal of Economet-
rics 36 (1987): 163–84;Orazio Attanasio and Fernando Reimers, Unequal School,
Unequal Chances: The Challenge to Equal Opportunity in the Americas (Cambridge,
MA, 2000); and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Household Saving in Developing Countries:
Demographics, Inequality and All That,” in Boris Pleskovic and N. H. Stern, eds.,
Annual World Bank Conference in Development Economics 2000 (Washington, DC,
2001).
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Even though there has been little research on the link between factor endow-
ments and income distribution, there are some good comparative data. Antonio
Spilimbergo, Juan Luis Londo
˜
no, and Miguel Sz
´
ekely, “Income Distribution, Fac-
tor Endowments and Trade Openness,” Journal of Development Economics 59 (1997):
77–101,provide the basis to support this argument. They study the empirical
links among factor endowments, trade, and personal income distribution, show-
ing that land- and capital-intensive countries have less equal income distributions,
whereas skill-intensive countries have more equal income distributions. Other
studies including comparative evidence on the effects of trade and markets lib-
eralization are George Borjas and Valerie Ramey, “Foreign Competition, Market
Power and Wage Inequalities,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics XC (1995):
1075–110;Francois Bourgignon and C. Morrison, eds., External Trade and Income
Distribution (Paris, 1989); Sebastian Edwards, “Openness, Trade Liberalization and
Growth in Developing Countries,” Journal of Economic Literature 31 (1993) 1358–93;
Richard Freeman and Lawrence Katz, eds., Differences and Changes in Wage Struc-
ture (Chicago, 1995); Donald Robbins, “HOS Hits Facts: Facts Win: Evidence
on Trade and Wages in the Developing World” (Harvard Institute for Interna-
tional Development), Development Discussion Paper no. 557,Harvard University,
1996); Adrian Wood, “North-South Trade Employment and Inequality: Chang-
ing Fortunes in a Skill Driven World” (London, 1994); and “Openness and Wage
Inequality in Developing Countries: The Latin American Challenge to East Asian
Conventional Wisdom,” The World Bank Economic Review (1996).