ABSTRACT
This reduction in inequality has taken many observers by surprise, not only for its unusual timing – inequality has decreased precisely in the years when it increased everywhere else – but also for the fact that the reduction was in Latin America, a region that has for decades held the dubious honor of being the most unequal region in the world. Latin American countries have been so flagrantly and persistently unequal that for some, inequality is as Latin American as lively dance music and magical-realist fiction (The Economist 2003). Not many would have predicted that Latin America could eventually escape from the vicious circle of increasing inequality in which the region had seemed trapped mere decades ago. But it has – at least for the time being.
