Sara Torregrosa Hetland
Senior lecturer
Growth, inequality and extraction in Ibero-American democratizations
Author
Summary, in English
Will democracy improve the distribution of economic welfare? Do dictatorships leave long-run legacies behind? In this paper we explore four Ibero-American countries with some common historical traits, but also different contexts: Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and Chile. The two Iberian nations suffered long periods of autocratic regime in the 20th Century, while our south American cases had relatively later and shorter dictatorships.
We intend to assess the extent to which democratization brought about improvements in societal welfare, combining indicators of inequality and economic performance. We propose the applicability of the concept of Inequality Extraction Ratio, initially suggested for ancient societies but adapted by Milanovic (2013b) to the analysis of contemporary economies. Our hypothesis is that democratizations, while probably not able to achieve reductions in inequality,
could have promoted decreases in relative extraction.
We intend to assess the extent to which democratization brought about improvements in societal welfare, combining indicators of inequality and economic performance. We propose the applicability of the concept of Inequality Extraction Ratio, initially suggested for ancient societies but adapted by Milanovic (2013b) to the analysis of contemporary economies. Our hypothesis is that democratizations, while probably not able to achieve reductions in inequality,
could have promoted decreases in relative extraction.
Department/s
- Department of Economic History
Publishing year
2016
Language
English
Links
Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Economic History
Keywords
- democratization
- income inequality
- inequality extraction ratio
- welfare
Conference name
II Jornada de Historia Económica
Conference date
2016-10-06 - 2016-10-06
Conference place
Madrid, Spain
Status
Unpublished