The historical evolution of inequality in Latin America : a comparative analysis, 1870-2000

Current levels of income and asset inequality in Latin American countries are, from a global comparative perspective, extraordinary high. This thesis explores the roots of Latin American economic inequality in the colonial era and, subsequently, focuses on the developments in the period 1870-2000. During the so-called ‘long twentieth century’ the forces of economic modernisation reformed the composition of national income fundamentally. Industrialisation, urbanisation, an increasing pace of technological change and vigorous waves of globalisation and de-globalisation heralded the definitive decay of the rural pre-modern ‘colonial’ society. The crucial question is why Latin American countries nevertheless failed, in spite of these forces, to settle that longstanding account of the colonial past?