Social Conflict and Populist Policies in Latin America [chapter]

Jeffrey Sachs
1990 Labour Relations and Economic Performance  
The central hypothesis of this paper is that high income inequality in Latin America contributes to intense political pressures for macroeconomic policies to raise the incomes of lower income groups, which in turn contributes to bad policy choices and weak economic performance. The paper looks in detail at one common type of policy failure: the populist policy cycle. This particular type of Latin American policymaking, characterized by overly expansionary macroeconomic policies which lead to
more » ... h inflation and severe balance of payments crises, has been repeated so often, and with such common characteristics, that it plainly reveals the linkages from social conflict to poor economic performance.
doi:10.1007/978-1-349-11562-4_6 fatcat:c7j7v4ne3ncnvirh2rp5xc7sge