ABSTRACT
As of the beginning of the 1980s, some Latin American countries are in a holding pattern that results neither in much growth nor in more equity. In Latin America those who participated in reform underwent a traumatic change – often from being the equivalent of serfs one day and in one location to having to be entrepreneurs the next day in a new location. By mid-1979, 40 percent of the land in Peru had been allocated to 35 percent of agrarian families, making the Peruvian reform one of the most complete in Latin America. Cristobal Kay documents that real incomes of workers increased rapidly at first but in the late 1970s stagnated and fell due to a drop in the world sugar price, mismanagement, droughts, and inappropriate government intervention. As agriculture is supplanted as the dominant activity by the more dynamic industrial sector, redistribution of land loses some of its importance for income distribution.
