Nº 195 (March, 2016). Joaquín Serrano & Ivana Benzaquén. 

This paper presents new evidence of the inequality possibility frontier and the inequality extraction ratio (how much potential inequality becomes real inequality) using a dataset from 18 countries of Latin America (LA) in the period 1990-2013. Comparing inequality in the world and within the region, we found that with this new measure LA is not as unequal as with traditional indicators. Finally, we link this new measure to social conflict. Countries with high rates of extraction ratio are more likely to have high levels of social conflict.

JEL Code: D31, D6