ABSTRACT
Latin American countries have experimented with a variety of development models – from liberal export-driven models in the first third of the 20th century to import substitution industrialization (isi) between roughly the 1930s and the 1970s, and neoliberal models since the 1980s. Latin America has also long been the region with the highest inequality in the world. At the height of the isi phase, in the late 1960s/early 1970s, inequality declined very slightly, only to increase significantly in the debt crisis decade of the 1980s and to continue at very high levels during and after the phase of neoliberal reforms. Poverty followed a slightly different trajectory, rising from 40 per cent in 1980 to 48 per cent in 1990, falling to 44 per cent by 2002 and falling below 40 per cent for the first time in 2005 ( eclac 2006: 7), only to threaten to increase again because of the rise in the price of oil and food in 2008.
