Five Centuries of Latin American Inequality

Abstract

Development/History Workshop (December 2008); and, especially, generous help with the data from Amilcar Challu. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Income Level and Income Inequality in the Euro-Mediterranean Region: From the Principate to the Islamic Conquest

“…If one focuses on the latter, he or she may see huge inequality even if, when measured by the Gini or other standard inequality measures, inequality is rather low. This is the situation similar to the one recently discussed by Williamson (2010) in relationship to Latin America after the European conquest: an apparently huge inequality (that is, a high inequality extraction ratio) coexisting with a low Gini. Thus too, in the centuries of the late antiquity, the Euro-Mediterranean region might have featured the control of the entire surplus above subsistence by a military-aristocratic elite while conventionally measured inequality was --nevertheless--low.…”

Pre-Independence Spanish Americans: Poor, Short and Unequal… or the Opposite?

“…It included an exploration of inequality from a different perspective to that adopted by Williamson (2009), although influenced by his previous work (Williamson 1999). It included an exploration of inequality from a different perspective to that adopted by Williamson (2009), although influenced by his previous work (Williamson 1999).…”

The Rise and Fall of Income Inequality in Latin America

“…In contrast, others argue that the levels of inequality in the region were not particularly high until the period of development that the region experienced in the late nineteenth century, and are therefore more optimistic about the reversal of that feature. Williamson (2009) …”