Commodity Boom Eases Poverty, Income Inequality in Latin America - IMF

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A period of rising commodity prices helped make Latin America the only region of the world to report reductions in poverty and income inequality in the past two decades, International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists wrote on the organization's official blog on Thursday.

"Latin America may be the most unequal region in the world, but it is the only region to significantly lower inequality over the past two decades, and the boom in commodity prices helped make it happen," economists Ravi Balakrishnan and Frederik Toscani wrote.

The post cited the IMF’s most recent Regional Economic Outlook for Latin America, which noted that poverty in the region decreased from about 27 to 12 percent, and inequality has decreased almost 11 percent across Latin America from 2000 to 2014.

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The period, commonly referred to as the commodity boom, saw the prices of commodities like oil, and metals, steadily increase thanks to growing demand from emerging market economies like China and India, the authors said.

However, the authors also noted that the boom has ended, poverty rates have begun edging up Latin American countries, and job creation has slowed.