Abstract
This work shows that the reduction of income inequality as a central element to improve the quality of life of society is an important component of the structuralist tradition in development economics. We study the views on income distribution followed by the structuralists of the 1940s and 1950s. We emphasize how their ideas offer policy tools to deal with current issues of inequality. Although different structuralist traditions share many concepts and views (such as the relevance of sectoral imbalances and the importance of achieving economic growth by the expansion of sectors with high productivity), they have differences. For example, in the Anglo-Saxon view developed and developing countries share a mutually beneficial set of relations, which is a belief not shared by the Latin American approach. The most relevant conclusion that the structuralist tradition provides is that the role of markets in producing the desired changes in the economic structure is dubious; hence planning, industrialization policy, and government intervention play a central role in the process of economic growth and the reduction of income inequality.
Keywords: Income Distribution, Structuralism, Economic Growth, Prosperity.
JEL codes: B54, B53, O34, O43, O57
