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Latin America’s Persistent Disorder: Meritocracy Without Mobility

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dc.contributor.authorCárdenas, Juan Camilo
dc.contributor.authorFergusson, Leopoldo
dc.date.accessioned2026-04-21T19:12:41Z
dc.date.available2026-04-21T19:12:41Z
dc.date.issued2026-04
dc.description.abstractLatin America combines strong beliefs in meritocracy with high levels of inequality, crime, and informality. We argue that these problems mutually reinforce an unfair and inefficient social equilibrium, sustained by deep mistrust in public institutions, low interpersonal trust, and an untamed individualism that privileges private over collective solutions. These cultural and normative foundations weaken public good provision, normalize rule-breaking, and sustain widespread acceptance of meritocracy despite low social mobility. Meritocracy, largely imagined under such conditions, nonetheless fits this individualistic culture, legitimizes the status quo, and is perversely validated by limited mobility in the widely accepted informal, and at times illegal, economy. These dynamics help explain why reforms often fail to transform outcomes: they confront not only weak institutions, but also entrenched beliefs and practices. Understanding Latin America’s “meritocracy without mobility” therefore requires analyzing how institutions, culture, and social norms sustain inequality as a stable equilibrium.
dc.format.extent40 páginas
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.instnameinstname:Universidad de los Andes
dc.identifier.issn1657-7191
dc.identifier.reponamereponame:Repositorio Institucional Séneca
dc.identifier.repourlrepourl:https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1992/78384
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofseriesDocumentos CEDE; 2026-20
dc.relation.repechttps://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000089/022449.html
dc.rights.accessrightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessspa
dc.rights.coarhttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2spa
dc.rights.urihttps://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/static/pdf/aceptacion_uso_es.pdf
dc.subject.jelD31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
dc.subject.jelD72 - Economic Models of Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
dc.subject.jelO17 - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
dc.subject.jelZ13 - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification
dc.subject.keywordInequality
dc.subject.keywordSocial mobility
dc.subject.keywordMeritocracy
dc.subject.keywordInformality
dc.subject.keywordCrime
dc.subject.keywordSocial norms
dc.subject.keywordLatin America
dc.subject.themesEconomía
dc.titleLatin America’s Persistent Disorder: Meritocracy Without Mobility
dc.typeDocumento de trabajospa
dc.type.coarhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042spa
dc.type.coarversionhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85
dc.type.contentTextspa
dc.type.driverinfo:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaperspa
dc.type.redcolhttp://purl.org/redcol/resource_type/WPspa
dc.type.versioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
dspace.entity.typePublication
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