Social Mobility and Economic Development

Abstract

Latin America is one of the most unequal regions of the world. After several decades with poor results in socioeconomic terms, the region experienced a remarkable inequality decline during the first decade of the 21st century (Gasparini et al., 2016; Tornarolli et al. 2018). At the same time, social mobility has been rising considerably in most countries in the region (Neidhöfer et al., 2018). This changing dynamics in income inequality and social mobility experienced by the region attracts special attention by researchers and policy makers. The aim of this study is to estimate the consequences of these developments for economic performance.