Latin America is often singled out for its high and persistent income inequality. Toward the end of the 1990s, however, income concentration began to fall across the region. Of the seventeen countries for which comparable data are available, twelve have experienced a decline, particularly since 2000. This book is among the first efforts to understand what happened in these countries and why.

Led by editors Felipe L?pez-Calva and Nora Lustig, a panel of distinguished economists undertakes in-depth analyses of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. In addition, they provide essential background in the form of overviews of the relationship between markets and inequality, the political economy of redistribution, and the evolution of income inequality in the advanced industrialized economies. Two factors account for much of the decline in inequality: a decrease in the wage gap between skilled and low-skilled labor, and an increase in government transfers targeted to the poor.

Thanks to the timeliness and sophistication of these essays, Declining Inequality in Latin America is likely to become a standard reference in its field.

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 disminuyo notablemente, del 44% al 30%. _La movilidad economica y el crecimiento de la clase media en America Latina_ analiza la naturaleza, los determinantes y las posibles consecuencias de este notable proceso de transformacion social. Los autores proponen una original definicion de la clase media, hecha a la medida de America Latina y centrada en el concepto de seguridad economica. Segun esta definicion, el grupo social mas grande de la region actualmente no son ni los pobres ni la clase media, sino un estrato de personas vulnerables situadas entre el umbral de la pobreza y los requisitos minimos para disfrutar de un modo de vida mas seguro, propio de la clase media. El auge de la clase media refleja los cambios recientes en la movilidad economica. La movilidad intergeneracional un concepto contrario a la desigualdad de oportunidades ha mejorado ligeramente pero sigue siendo muy limitada. Tanto el nivel educativo como los logros educativos siguen siendo sumamente dependientes del nivel de escolarizacion de los padres. Sin embargo, se ha producido un aumento real de la movilidad de los ingresos. En los ultimos 15 anos, al menos el 43% de los habitantes de America Latina ha cambiado de clase social, en la mayoria de los casos en un sentido ascendente. Los autores sostienen que hay numerosos beneficios potenciales en el auge de esta clase media, si bien advierten que la materializacion de esos beneficios depende en gran medida de que los paises consigan anclar la clase media en torno a un nuevo contrato social, mas cohesivo, que ponga de relieve la necesidad de incluir a todos aquellos que han quedado rezagados. _La movilidad economica y el crecimiento de la clase media en America Latina_ despertara un gran interes entre los responsables de las politicas en America Latina y en otras regiones, entre los funcionarios de las instituciones multilaterales y entre estudiantes y docentes de economia, politicas publicas y ciencias sociales."

With moderate but sustained economic growth and generally declining inequality, the 2000s were a good decade for Latin America. Moderate poverty fell from roughly 40% to 30% of the population. Economic mobility powered a perceived increase in the ranks of the Latin American middle class. But who, exactly, belongs to that middle class? How much has it really grown? How much economic mobility do these countries really display? Drawing on a unique combination of data sets - income and consumption distributions, test scores, parental characteristics, personal beliefs and attitudes - this volume sheds new light on a period of pronounced social change in Latin America and the Caribbean. It paints a nuanced picture of a society where the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status still prevails, but where upward income movement within generations is now significant. It adopts a middle class definition that is based on economic security, and is arguably less arbitrary than others in the literature, and documents a 50% increase in its size. Yet, most of the continent's population is neither poor nor middle-class - but near-poor or vulnerable. The authors argue that there are many potential benefits from a growing middle class, but caution that whether those benefits come to fruition will depend, to a large extent, on whether countries manage to anchor their middle classes into a new, more cohesive, social contract that emphasises the inclusion of those who so far have been left behind.|Although the new European Union Party Financing Regulation is actually a sub-topic of the widely discussed European Constitution, officials have so far been rather quiet about it. The Regulation declares artificially created bodies called ""party alliances"" as political parties for the sole purpose of enabling subsidies from the EU budget to be paid to the European umbrella organizations of the established parties. This book argues that the regulation violates almost every principle of appropriate and legitimate public funding of political parties. Such principles have, for instance, already been drawn up by the German Constitutional Court and the Council of Europe. This book discusses such issues. Hans Herbert von Arnim is professor of public law at the School for Public Administration in Speyer, Germany. Martin Schurig teaches at the Institute for Public Administration in Speyer, Germany.