This paper revives Fernando Fajnzylber's methodology, used to characterize Latin America's development pattern from the nineteen-sixties to the nineteen-eighties, leading him to describe it as a non-equitable growth pattern, which he termed the empty box. This time around, we analyze the last thirty years, aiming to reveal how the development pattern in the region has fundamentally changed, if it has changed at all, and find evidence as to whether the empty box, pursuant to its original definition, persists or not. Implicitly, the task is to propose a critical analysis of Latin American economic development in line with a classic structuralist work, as Fajnyzylber's research is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]