This study uses data from Malaysia's Household Income and Expenditure Surveys to quantify the importance of different factors in accounting for the changes in Malaysia's income distribution between 1984 and 1989 ("Period 1") and between 1989 and 1997 ("Period 2"). The analysis is therefore...

What did the Latin American economies achieve in the course of a hundred years and how has this affected standards of living? This comprehensive history examines the political and economic forces that have shaped Latin America's development process.Abstract: Esta historia económica revisa las...

What did the Latin American economies achieve in the course of a hundred years and how has this affected standards of living? This comprehensive history examines the political and economic forces that have shaped Latin America's development process.Abstract: Esta historia económica revisa las...

Cross-country studies have found a negative relationship between income inequality and economic growth. The main problem with the cross-country analyses is the poor quality of the data on income distribution. This paper tests the robustness of the cross-country results to the use of a more...

The main contribution of this paper with respect to previous work is the use of data on subjective perceptions to identify the Latin American middle classes. This paper provides a set of comparisons between objective and subjective definitions of middle-class using data from the 2007 World...

This paper studies the empirical links among factor endowments, trade, and personal income distribution. The motivation is that many developing countries have implemented radical trade reforms in recent years. These reforms have changed relative prices, induced a reallocation of resources, and...

This paper argues that there is no country in Latin America where we can confidently say that income inequality improved during the 1990s. We document this fact for the 15 countries where comparable household surveys, covering most of the population, are available. What we observe are genuine...

This paper presents microeconomic simulation techniques to examine what drives differences in inequality across countries. The simulation decomposes cross-country inequality differences into the importance of individual decisions, such as fertility, mating, labor force participation, and...

This paper compares objective and subjective definitions of the middle-class using data from the 2007 World Gallup Poll. Seven objective income-based definitions of social class are contrasted with a self-perceived social status measure. Mismatches between the objective and subjective...

The use of income distribution indicators in the economics literature has increased considerably in recent years. This work relies on household surveys from 18 LAC countries to take a step back from the use of these indicators, and explore what's behind the numbers, and what information they...