'The Political Economy of State Building in Latin America' LACEA's ASSA-AEA 2021 Invited session

This invited session feature four papers by top Latin American scholars who are experts on a variety of aspects related to the political economy of state building in different countries of the region. Each paper discuss a different challenge faced by Latin America to build strong states with democratic and inclusive institutions, from the human capital legacy of the chilean dictatorship under Pinochet, to the use of creative clientelistic practices in Colombia, to the failure of an enfranchisement reform in El Salvador due to the control of gangs, to the interaction between research finding and policy change in Brazil.