The history of inequality in Latin America. These studies cover a period that goes from a few decades after the independence of the colonies to the 2000s. They are (the second) part of a course about Inequality in LA I prepared. 1/11 
Ups and downs? Has Latin America always been very unequal? This thread is mostly about the ‘Persistence’ debate about the long term history of the region. Later, I will make another one on the more recent period. 2/11
Williamson’s thesis in Five Centuries of Latin American income inequality is that in many parts of the world inequality was high at the beginning of the 20th century, but declined in the ‘great leveling’. Latin America missed the ‘great leveling’. doi.org/10.1017/S02126…
Some studies challenge the persistency hypothesis and argue that more than missing the ‘great leveling’, Latin America saw an increase in inequality. They claim that persistence was a myth, as Bértola, Castelnovo, Rodríguez, Willebald do: doi.org/10.1177/002071…
It all depends on how ‘persistence’ is defined. An intermediate hypothesis is the fluctuation band hypothesis: inequality varied, but always within a relatively high and narrow band. 🔀 5/11 (I copied this "twitter hieroglyph" from a chat btwn @_alice_evans and @pseudoerasmus )
Leticia Arroyo Abad @LArroyoAbad and Pablo Junquera challenge the notion that colonial legacies dominated the evolution of inequality in Latin America: it fluctuates and has an ‘m’ shape. doi.org/10.1007/s11698…
I see fluctuation within a narrow band, at least in Brazil, but Pedro Souza @phgfsouza is a little more skeptical about identifying a pattern. Anyway, I agree with him that fluctuation occurs in tandem with major political periods. sbsociologia.com.br/sid/index.php/…
The persistence hypotheses is not so much based on the observation of income distributions, but on the observation of what was identified to be the causes of inequality, as in @EwoutFrankema ‘s book brill.com/view/title/165…
So, the first challenge is to collect empirical evidence to test these theories. The work of @JRodriguezWeber on Chile is important for many reasons, among them the methodology for using dynamic social tables based on occupations. A summary here doi.org/10.1007/978-3-…
But the second challenge is to define what inequality is and where it is located. Looking at the concentration of top incomes requires specific methods and data; looking at the bottom demands different methodologies and sources of evidence. 10/11
11/11 As soon as I can, I will prepare another one with a different theme of the course, social mobility. If you want to take a look at another thread about ‘rich, the poor and the middle classes’, this is the link
https://twitter.com/marcelo_meds/status/1144592925558525952
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