Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Summary -- Chapter 1: Introduction: Motivation and Conceptual Framework -- 1.1 A conceptual framework -- 1.2 The consequences of high inequality -- Part I: The Nature of Inequality in Latin America -- Chapter 2: Different Lives: Inequality in Latin America -- 2.1 Some conceptual issues -- 2.2 Income inequality and beyond -- 2.3 Measurement-related issues and data limitations -- 2.4 Inequality in Latin America in perspective -- 2.5 Looking inside household income -- 2.6 Inequality beyond income -- 2.7 Conclusions -- Chapter 3: Group-Based Inequalities: The Roles of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender -- 3.1 Who are the people of Latin America? -- 3.2 Inequality among individuals during the lifecycle -- 3.3 Would income inequality decline if returns to human capital were more equal? -- 3.4 Conclusions -- Part II: The Determinants of Inequality in Latin America -- Chapter 4: Historical Roots of Inequality in Latin America -- 4.1 Factor endowments, inequality, and institutions -- 4.2 The persistence of inequality: The colonial period -- 4.3 The persistence of inequality: Post-independence -- 4.4 The 20th century -- 4.5 The 21st century and beyond -- Chapter 5: State-Society Interactions as Sources of Persistence and Change in Inequality -- 5.1 Political and social structures as forces for the reproduction of inequality -- 5.2 The potential for equalizing political and social change -- 5.3 Conclusions -- Chapter 6: Economic Mechanisms for the Persistence of High Inequality in Latin America -- 6.1 Asset distributions: Education and land -- 6.2 Job match quality -- 6.3 Remuneration in the labor markets -- 6.4 Household formation -- 6.5 Conclusions -- Part III: Policies for Lower Inequality -- Chapter 7: Policies on Assets and Services -- 7.1 Education -- 7.2 Property rights, land, and housing.

7.3 Infrastructure services and the distributional impact of privatization -- 7.4 Conclusions -- Chapter 8: Policies on Markets and Institutions -- 8.1 Markets and inequality -- 8.2 Labor market policies and inequality -- 8.3 Inequality and macroeconomic crises -- 8.4 Conclusions -- Chapter 9: Taxation, Public Expenditures, and Transfers -- 9.1 Taxes and distribution -- 9.2 Public social spending and distribution -- 9.3 Cash transfers and distribution -- 9.4 Conclusions -- Statistical Appendix -- Bibliography -- Boxes -- Chapter 1 -- 1.1 Measuring inequality of opportunities in Brazil -- Chapter 2 -- 2.1 Social class -- 2.2 Mobility in Latin America: What little is known? -- 2.3 Some simple decompositions -- 2.4 Social capital and trust -- 2.5 Disability and distribution -- Chapter 3 -- 3.1 Distribution of the population of the Americas: An historical evolution -- 3.2 Todos Contamos: National census and social inclusion -- 3.3 The challenge of racial, ethnic, and gender identification and measurement -- 3.4 What if we do hold "all else constant?" -- 3.5 Women's other job: Housework -- 3.6 Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition methodology -- 3.7 Econometric methodology -- Chapter 5 -- 5.1 Racial inequality and social spending: Evidence from the United States and Europe -- 5.2 Clientelism and the underprovision of public services in the Dominican Republic -- 5.3 Are there political and social reasons for the contrast between Latin America and East Asia? -- 5.4 Political agency and the potential for redistributive strategy in rich countries: Lessons from the OECD -- 5.5 Increased equity through taxation and social spending in a democratic Chile -- 5.6 Failed redistributive efforts in a fragmented democracy: Social security reforms in Brazil -- 5.7 Neopopulism and policies on social funds in Peru.

5.8 Transition at the sectoral level? Mexico's targeted antipoverty programs -- 5.9 Popular budgeting in Porto Alegre: Explaining a transition to a new political equilibrium -- 5.10 Local contexts and the transition from clientelism: Ibagué versus Pasto -- Chapter 6 -- 6.1 Schematic representation of household income determination -- Chapter 7 -- 7.1 Business elites and the fear of education: Is there a low-road trap? Evidence from northeastern Brazil and the southern U -- 7.2 Bilingual education: Preserving cultural heritage without being left behind -- 7.3 The poverty reduction potential of land in rural Mexico -- Chapter 8 -- 8.1 Alternative views on the potential impact of market-oriented reforms and inequality -- 8.2 The evolution of small-scale firms in the "Third Italy" -- 8.3 Unions, firms, and the expansion of high-value export crops in Petrolina-Juazeiro in northeastern Brazil -- 8.4 Institutions, macroeconomic policy, and volatility -- Chapter 9 -- 9.1 Do tax incidence numbers mean much? -- 9.2 Issues in the valuation of public services -- 9.3 Summarizing benefit incidence using Gini income elasticities (GIE) -- Figures -- Summary -- 1. Difference in average years of education between top and bottom quintiles for people 31-40 and 51-60, in 2000 -- 2. Trends in income inequality in Latin America between the early 1990s and early 2000s -- 3. The elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to growth for different levels of inequality -- 4. Wages of various groups in relation to the wages of white males -- 5. Marital sorting and income inequality -- 6. Distribution of mathematics and reading test scores for 15-year-olds in Brazil, Mexico, and OECD countries -- 7. Tax revenue in relation to GDP per capita -- 8. Average and marginal incidence of access to various health services.

9. Targeting to the poor and reach among the poor for different types of programs in Brazil -- Chapter 1 -- (Box 1.1) Inequality of opportunities as a share of total inequality, 1996 -- 1.1 A simple conceptual framework -- 1.2 Perceptions of fairness regarding the income distribution in Latin America -- 1.3 Inequality and poverty with a constant mean -- 1.4 Growth elasticities become less negative with inequality -- Chapter 2 -- 2.1 Income shares by deciles (household per capita income) -- 2.2 Household per capita income distribution, excluding the richest 1 percent, Mexico, 2000 -- 2.3 Equivalized household income -- 2.4 Indices of aggregate welfare for Argentina under alternative assumptions of a society's aversion to inequality -- 2.5 Brazil's consumption inequality in international perspective -- 2.6 Distribution of household per capita income, per region, 1990s -- 2.7 Difference in average years of education between top and bottom quintiles, per country -- 2.8 Hourly wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers, men aged 25 to 55 -- 2.9 Hourly wage gap between semi-skilled and unskilled workers, men aged 25 to 55 -- 2.10 Increase in hourly wages for college-educated workers, men aged 25 to 55 -- 2.11 Labor market outcomes by gender -- 2.12 Ratio of number of children under age 12 years of age per household between bottom and top quintiles -- 2.13 School enrollment rates by age and country -- 2.14 Gaps in access to services, by country -- Chapter 3 -- (Box 3.1) The changing ethnic composition of the Americas -- 3.1 Completed primary education or less, by race, ethnicity, and gender -- 3.2 Proportion of workers in service or managerial occupations, by group and country -- 3.3 Wage gaps by race/ethnicity and gender -- 3.4 Urban gender wage gap-ratio of women's hourly wages to men's hourly wages.

(Box 3.7) a. Nonindigenous male vs. American Indian male (simulating earnings regression coefficients) -- (Box 3.7) b. Nonindigenous male vs. American Indian male (simulating only education) -- (Box 3.7) c. Nonindigenous male vs. American Indian male (simulating both a and b) -- 3.5 Actual and simulated earnings distributions for white and indigenous men in Bolivia -- 3.6 Actual and simulated earnings distributions for Indo-Guyanese men and women -- Chapter 5 -- 5.1 The syndrome of weak and unequal states: correlations between the rule of law and development outcomes -- 5.2 Political financing and its impact, by type -- 5.3 Impact of bribes in shaping policy, according to a survey of firms by a recipient group, Peru, 2001 -- 5.4 The rise and fall of the labor share in Argentina -- Chapter 6 -- 6.1 Income and education inequalities across countries -- 6.2 Lorenz curves of years of schooling, selected countries -- 6.3 Difference in mean incomes per hundredth of the mean-normalized distribution: U.S.-Brazil and U.S.-Brazil (with U.S. conditional distribution of education) -- 6.4 Income and land inequalities across countries -- 6.5 Labor force participation and inequality across countries -- 6.6 Unemployment and inequality across countries -- 6.7 Informality and inequality across countries -- 6.8 Returns on schooling and inequality across countries -- 6.9 Distribution of and returns on education explain some of the differences between income distributions -- 6.10 Marital sorting and inequality across countries -- 6.11 Youth dependency and inequality across countries -- 6.12 Old-age dependency and inequality across countries -- 6.13 The role of reproductive behavior in accounting for differences in income distribution between Brazil and the United States -- 6.14 Total public spending and income inequality.

6.15 Public expenditure on primary education and income inequality.