Five centuries of Latin American income inequality

Most analysts of the modern Latin American economy believe that it has always had very high levels of inequality. Indeed, some have argued that high inequality appeared very early in the post-conquest Americas, and that this fact supported rent-seeking and anti-growth institutions that help explain the disappointing growth performance we observe there even today. This paper argues to the contrary. Compared with the rest of the world, Latin American inequality wasnothigh either in pre-conquest 1491 or in the post-conquest decades following 1492. Indeed, it wasnoteven high in the mid-19thcentury just before Latin America’sbelle époque. It only became high thereafter. Historical persistence in Latin American inequality is a myth.