Trade and Poverty in Latin America

Understanding the complex relations between trade integration and poverty reduction is now a priority for Latin American policymakers. The chapters of this book, penned by eminent authors with a long-standing record in the field, represent the current state of knowledge about trade and poverty and offer contrasting points of view about whether freer trade can reduce poverty in Latin America. One of the main lessons extracted from the book is that preexisting policies and socioeconomc conditions play a key role in determining how trade integration affects poverty. Because transmission channels are complex and highly contextualized, policymakers are urged to adopt complementary policies tailored to their countries' circumstances in order to ensure an equitable distribution of the gains from trade.