Tras decadas de estancamiento, la poblacion de clase media en America Latina y el Caribe ha aumentado en un 50%-de aproximadamente 100 millones de personas en 2003 a 150 millones (o un 30% de la poblacion del continente) en 2009. Durante este periodo, el porcentaje de la poblacion pobre...

This paper presents empirical results of a wide range of multidimensional poverty measures for: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Uruguay, for the period 1992–2006. Six dimensions are analysed: income, child attendance at school, education of the household head, sanitation,...

This study aims to understand women's engagement in economic activities in rural Honduras and why these activities may not be accurately reflected in official statistics. The study finds that women underreport their engagement in economic activities, including production for own consumption,...

A vast proportion of households in developing countries like Paraguay are both consumers and producers of food, and thus the effects of food price fluctuations on welfare are not obvious. Historically, the agricultural sector in Paraguay has played a key role in economic development and has...

Over the past decade (2003-12), Latin America has experienced strong income growth and a notable reduction in income inequality, with the region's Gini coefficient falling from 55.6 to 51.8. Previous studies have warned about the sustainability of such a decline, and this paper presents evidence...

After decades of stagnation, the size of Latin America's middle class recently expanded to the point where, for the first time ever, the number of people in poverty is equal to the size of the middle class. This volume investigates the nature, determinants and possible consequences of this...

The 2001/02 Argentine crisis had a profound impact on Uruguay's economy. Uruguay's gross domestic product shrank by 17.5 percent and the proportion of people living below the poverty line doubled in just two years. It took almost 10 years for the poverty rate to recover to its pre-crisis level....

Income differences arise from many sources. While some kinds of inequality, caused by effort differences, might be associated with faster economic growth, other kinds, arising from unequal opportunities for investment, might be detrimental to economic progress. This study uses two new metadata...

This paper offers an axiomatic characterization of two classes of poverty measures that are sensitive to inequality of opportunity -- one a strict subset of the other. The proposed indices are sensitive not only to income shortfalls from the poverty line, but also to differences in the...