IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v12y1991i1p19-29.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Progressive are Progressive Economic Policies? A Note on Latin America's 'Catch 22'

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan de Vyider

    (Stockholm School of Economics)

Abstract

Most attempts by left-wing regimes to reduce Latin America's appalling inequalities in income and opportunities have failed. This article summarizes a few conclusions that can be drawn from wellintentioned but largely counterproductive policies carried out in the name of equality. Among these lessons can be mentioned: (1) the more,progressive' a government is, the more important it becomes to maintain conservative macroeconomic policies; (2) although inflation hurts the poor, attempts to suppress inflation with the help of subsidies, price controls and massive increases in state expenditure tend to hurt the poorest of the poor; and (3) honest, radical governments attacking 'speculation' with the wrong means easily end up creating an economic environment where honesty is punished, while 'speculation' and corruption are rewarded.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan de Vyider, 1991. "How Progressive are Progressive Economic Policies? A Note on Latin America's 'Catch 22'," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 12(1), pages 19-29, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:12:y:1991:i:1:p:19-29
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X91121003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X91121003
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X91121003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:12:y:1991:i:1:p:19-29. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.