Publication

This publication asks why after a decade of economic reforms that dramatically altered the economic structure of Latin America and increases in public spending on education, health and other social programs, poverty and high inequality remain deeply entrenched. The authors argue that the reforms have not contributed to reducing poverty and inequality, as they have not addressed the underlying structural causes of high poverty, that is, the poor’s lack of access to credit and to productivity-enhancing assets. The publication goes further in proposing a more explicit “bootstraps”-style social policy, which should tackle the underlying causes.