Are They All the Same? The Distribution of Personal Wealth Between the Left and the Right in Latin America

Abstract

Conventional wisdom indicates that politicians in Latin America are all wealthy. However, the literature on both political elites and social origins of political parties indicates that we should expect differences in the capital accumulation of politicians depending on their ideological position. This study seeks to explore that question using financial disclosure forms made available in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and the Dominican Republic. We calculate the median wealth of the main political parties in each country and compared them according to their ideological position on the left–right continuum. We consistently find that the most right-leaning party in each country had a higher median wealth than the most left-leaning one. This relation is non-linear since centrist parties often represent anomalies in the distribution of wealth. When there are no ideological differences, we do not observe significant wealth differences either.