one explanation offered for this is that people at the bottom of the distribution scale did not benefit as much from growth as other sectors of the population over the decade morley szekely generally speaking less unequal countries performed worse on average than more unequal ones over the decade as described in gasparini inequality increased in argentina the bolivarian republic of venezuela and uruguay whose economies have lower levels of inequality while countries where inequality fell were invariably those with high initial levels of inequality this was compounded by the effects of structural reform trade liberalization financial reform tax reform privatizations and labourmarket reforms in the case of trade opening the evidence suggests that this contributed to rising inequality see the reviews in taylor and goldberg and ravnick while for the other reforms analyses are less compelling