The rich, the poor and the middle class. I prepared a course on the history of inequality in Latin America. This thread is about one part of it, the literature about specific groups (classes). 1/11 
The rich. The top incomes literature changed the landscape of long term inequality research. It complements, with data on the rich, what surveys and general administrative data identify at the middle and the bottom of distributions. 2/11
Pedro @phgfsouza produced the longest and most complete top income series in Latin America, covering Brazil from 1926 to 2015, using tax data. This work received two prizes and deserves reading doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm… 3/11
Tides of inequality. Essentially, @phgfsouza has a political theory of inequality dynamics. The concentration at the rich ebbs and flows according to the political regime: it rises fast in dictatorial periods and declines slowly during democracy. 4/11
Argentina, 1932-2004, was the first long term top income series for Latin America. Prepared by Alvaredo, it set the path for much of the following work in the region. piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Atkinson… 5/11
It takes two to tango. Take a look at these curves. Top incomes in Brazil and Argentina once danced together, as shown by Pedro @phgfsouza and Alvaredo. But at a point they split. One chose tango and the other, samba. The challenge is to explain what happened. 6/11
The Poor. As the title says, @LdelaEscosura ‘s, Inequality and Poverty in Latin America… is about inequality and poverty and identified that poverty reduction was mostly due to growth, not to inequality reduction core.ac.uk/download/pdf/2… 7/11
The Middle. The Rise of the Middle Class. Using social tables María Gómez-León @Maria0zmg shows that limited growth and a rigid hierarchy prevented the emergence of a middle class during the nineteenth century in Brazil. doi.org/10.1093/ereh/h…
I may be stretching a little here, but I believe the top 10% of the distribution can give us a view of the middle class in Latin American countries. The truth is that I have come across very little about the long term history of middle classes. 8/11
Using survey data, Claudia Sanhueza @clausanhueza and Ricardo Mayer study the upper middle-class and the rich in Chile, 1957-2007 (top 10%). What strikes me is the rapid concentration of income in the middle class during the Chilean dictatorship. scielo.conicyt.cl/pdf/ede/v38n1/… 9/11
Ok, mea culpa: this is part of a course. I found it hard to cover the fairly extensive literature about the region so I chose texts I consider landmarks or entrance points to the debate. Their reviews of specific literature is very complete. 10/11
I better stop here, this thread became too long. As soon as I can I will prepare one about the ‘general inequality’ part of the course. I hope this was useful. 11/11
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