Income Distribution In Brazil Research Articles

Neoliberalism and its Consequences in Brazil

This article examines the impact of a decade of neoliberal policies on poverty and income distribution in Brazil. It demonstrates that while trade and market reform contributed towards the attainment of price stability and accelerated capital inflows, little was achieved by way of reducing income inequality and poverty. The article concludes by outlining the policy options which might be adopted to tackle this critical problem.

Distribuição de renda e crescimento econômico

CRESCIMENTO econômico e distribuição da renda são temas básicos da teoria econômica e das análises econômicas do desenvolvimento do Brasil, um país com desigualdade extremamente elevada. A análise da desigualdade ganhou especial notoriedade a partir de 1972, depois da publicação dos resultados do Censo Demográfico de 1970. Hoje, parece consensual que é necessário reduzir essa desigualdade, mas toda medida prática nesse sentido gera polêmica.

Privatization, regulation and income distribution in Brazil

Deep inequality in the distribution of income and wealth has been surprisingly persistent throughout Brazil’s five centuries of history. Whether the state’s presence in the economy was pronounced or minimal, its rulers, military or civilian, its economy relatively open or closed to foreign trade and investment, the degree of inequality has hardly changed. Many arguments have been made for this persistence, among them the political power of elites, the low levels of investment in education, and economic dependency. The economic turmoil of the 1980s included the debt crisis early in the decade, price increases verging on hyperinflation, a series of failed stabilization plans, and the fiscal exhaustion of the state. The stage was thus set in the 1990s for a profound rethinking about the way in which Brazil should run its economic affairs. This was reinforced by events outside Brazil, among them the much publicized privatization programs of the U.K and Chile and the disintegration of the socialist economic systems of the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. One of the consequences of this sea change in thinking was much more support for market-oriented policies. Prominent among these policies was the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Our purpose in this paper is to examine the potential impacts of this policy change on economic equity. Concern with equity was rarely the focus of the reforms of the past decade, which were largely driven by fiscal exhaustion and were justified as a way of improving economic efficiency. As important as efficiency and fiscal balance may be, however, we must also ask how privatization might affect the depth and persistence of economic inequality in Brazil. The potential links between privatization and equity are complex and ambiguous, but

Sectoral-Occupational Structural of Employment in Brazil and the Evolution of Income Distribution over the 1990's

The paper analyses the new sectoral and occupational profile of Brazilian labour market in the 1990?s. Firstly we discuss some general aspects of the sectoral changes in employment and of the personal distribution of income in Brazil. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the personal distribution is more unequal in the service sector than in the industrial sector. This is particulary worrying when we consider the important incorporating role that has been performed by service segment in recent time. Finaly some characteristics of the occupational structure are presented in more details. The figures show that there is a process of expansion of the informal sector going on, which is regarded here as an evidence of the disorganization of Brazilian labour market.

Convergence in Brazil: recent trends and long-run prospects

This paper applies to the analysis of the interstate income distribution in Brazil a set of techniques that have been widely used in the current empirical literature on growth and convergence. Usual measures of dispersion in the interstate income distribution (the coefficient of variation and Theil's index) suggest that sigma-convergence was an unequivocal feature of the regional growth experience in Brazil, between 1970 and 1986. After 1986, the process of convergence seems, however, to have slowed down almost to a halt. A standard growth model is shown to fit the regional data well and to explain a substantial amount of the variation in growth rates, providing estimates of the speed of (conditional) beta-convergence of approximately 3% p.a. Different estimates of the long-run distribution implied by the recent growth trends point towards further reductions in the interstate income inequality, but also suggest that the relative per capita incomes of a significant number of states and the number of ‘very poor’ and ‘poor’ states were, in 1995, already quite close to their steady-state values.

Income distribution in brazil 1981–1990 parametric and non-parametric approaches

We examine changes in the shape of the Brazilian income distribution during the “lost decade” of the 1980s, using a recently available comprehensive micro-data set. We show that income inequality increased during the decade and that average real incomes also increased. We illustrate some of the difficulties involved in modelling income distributions, particularly ones as skewed as that of Brazil, by applying kernel density estimation techniques, and examine separately the upper tail of the distribution by fitting Pareto functions. The shape of the underlying income distribution was transformed in a particularly interesting fashion during the 1980s, becoming flatter and broader throughout the decade. Inequality amongst the rich also increased during the decade with Pareto's α falling between 1981 and 1990.

Income Distribution and Social Expenditure in Brazil

This paper examines trends in income distribution in Brazil and the determinants of income inequality, including social expenditure. While recent data reveal reduced income inequality since the Real Plan of July 1994, the distribution of income is still among the most unequal in the world. Among the most important determinants of income inequality in Brazil is extreme disparity in educational attainment levels. Public expenditures on education, health, and social insurance have tended to exacerbate income inequality. A number of options for improving the equity and efficiency of Brazilian social expenditure merit further examination.

Income Distribution and Social Expenditure in Brazil

This paper examines trends in income distribution in Brazil and the determinants of income inequality, including social expenditure. While recent data reveal reduced income inequality since the Real Plan of July 1994, the distribution of income is still among the most unequal in the world. Among the most important determinants of income inequality in Brazil is extreme disparity in educational attainment levels. Public expenditures on education, health, and social insurance have tended to exacerbate income inequality. A number of options for improving the equity and efficiency of Brazilian social expenditure merit further examination.

Counterfactual analysis of income distribution in Brazil

RESUMO Usando uma estrutura de insumo-produto, este artigo estuda as consequências da redistribuição de renda das pessoas ricas, tanto para os pobres quanto para o governo, sobre a estrutura setorial da economia brasileira nos anos 70. Além do uso tradicional de elementos de análise setorial, o principal conceito usado para atingir esse objetivo é o de “subeconomias”, com foco nas indústrias (e nos padrões associados de emprego e valor agregado) que produzem os componentes de determinados pacotes de despesas. Assim, uma subeconomia é composta pela atividade econômica derivada de determinados grupos de gastos, como famílias pobres de consumidores, governo etc. Dois principais resultados emergem da aplicação empírica desses conceitos. Primeiro, a agricultura é o setor mais importante na geração de emprego em resposta às transferências de renda de famílias ricas para famílias pobres. Segundo, a urbanização que acompanhou o crescimento durante os anos 70 favorece uma estratégia redistributiva na qual o papel do governo se destaca em termos de geração de valor agregado e emprego.

Income distribution in Brazil in the 1980s

Resumo Ao contrário do grande desenvolvimento da economia brasileira desde o pós-guerra até o final da década de 70, a década de 80 significou a ruptura desse ciclo e a combinação de um processo inflacionário crônico, a estagnação econômica e o agravamento da desigualdade de renda. Esses fatores em conjunto não se revelaram neutros quanto ao aspecto distributivo. Entre 1981 e 1989, a renda dos 10 por cento mais ricos aumentou 14,2 por cento, enquanto a renda dos 20 por cento mais pobres diminuiu 26 por cento. Este trabalho apresenta algumas comparações internacionais, tanto sobre a distribuição funcional como sobre a distribuição pessoal da renda, e conclui que essa distribuição se torna um aspecto fundamental para a estabilização e para a recuperação do desenvolvimento econômico-social.

Income distribution in Brazil: evaluation of the long-term tendencies and changes in inequality since mid-1970s

RESUMO O artigo analisa a distribuição de renda brasileira, com o objetivo de identificar em que medida políticas econômicas, desempenho macroeconômico e mudanças na estrutura da força de trabalho estão relacionadas à desigualdade. Há evidências de aumentos de longo prazo na desigualdade, especialmente entre 1960 e 1970. As tendências de longo prazo não parecem ser afetadas pelo desempenho econômico, embora a estagnação da década de 1980 tenha levado a perdas absolutas de renda para todos os indivíduos, exceto aqueles no percentil superior. O comportamento de curto prazo, por outro lado, parece ter sido influenciado pelo desempenho econômico: há evidências de que o crescimento melhora a equidade, enquanto a alta inflação tem o efeito oposto. Uma análise de decomposição destaca a importância da educação na explicação da desigualdade, mas aponta para mudanças na estrutura da força de trabalho como o principal fator na contabilização de mudanças na desigualdade desde meados da década de 1970.

State Enterprise and Employment Generation in Brazil

Previous articleNext article No AccessState Enterprise and Employment Generation in BrazilBenedict J. ClementsBenedict J. Clements Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Economic Development and Cultural Change Volume 41, Number 1Oct., 1992 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/451994 Views: 3Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1992 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Benedict J. Clements, Growth Strategies, Employment, and Income Distribution in Brazil: An Input-Output Assessment, IMF Working Papers 91, no.122122 (Jan 1991): i.https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451938944.001

O Índice de Desigualdade de Theil-Atkinson

The paper stresses the correspondence between the second inequality measure (L) developed by Theil (1967) from Information Theory and one member of the family of indices proposed by Atkinson (1970), based on a measure of social welfare. The sensitivity of L to regressive income transfers is compared with the sensitivities of the Gini index and the redundancy (Theil's first measure). It is shown how the inequality within strata can be estimated when computing L for grouped data. In the last section the size distribution of income in Brazil in 1960, 1970, 1980 and the period 1985-89 is analysed, showing the importance of using different inequality measures in order to better detect the changes in the distribution.

Growth Strategies, Employment, and Income Distribution in Brazil: An Input-Output Assessment

Growth Strategies, Employment, and Income Distribution in Brazil: An Input-Output Assessment

Wage inflation, fiscal policies, and income distribution in Brazil

Economic growth in Brazil over the last three decades has been marked by sharp changes in the socioeconomic structure of the nation. The state has played a major role in the growth process, pursuing development strategies aimed at stimulating growth that directly or indirectly affected income distribution. This article presents an empirical model of Brazil's economy that is used to explore the effects of alternative policies and other structural changes. A computable general equilibrium model is used to simulate the impact of increases in money wages, public spending and transfers, and a change in the distribution of labor income.

Income distribution in Brazil: 1985, 1986, and 1987

RESUMO Este artigo experimenta inconsistências na visão dominante de que em 1987 houve uma melhoria significativa nos salários dos trabalhadores. Usando dados da PNAD e considerando a variação real do salário-mínimo, mostramos que, dependendo do deflator, a desigualdade e a pobreza podem ser maiores ou menores em 1987 do que em 1985.

Macroeconomic Adjustments, Agricultural Performance, and Income Distribution in Brazil since 1973: An Overview

Macroeconomic Adjustments, Agricultural Performance, and Income Distribution in Brazil since 1973: An Overview

Wages, minimum wages, and income distribution in Brazil: Results from the construction industry

Critics of post-1964 economic policy in Brazil have argued that the decline of at least 25% in the real value of the government-determined minimum wage between 1964 and 1974 was an important factor accounting for increasing inequality in the size distribution of personal income observed during this period. This paper reports the results of a new test of this proposition, using cross-section and time series wage rate statistics for the Brazilian construction industry. The results suggest that the official minimum wage plays an important signalling role in wage-determination, acting as a standard of reference for the setting of the wage-rates of the least skilled manual workers in the Brazilian construction industry. The results, therefore, confirm the view that minimum wage policy in Brazil is influential in determining the size distribution of earned income.

POVERTY AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN BRAZIL1

The article refutes the contention that Brazil's development has not benefited the poor and that rapid growth has had a polarizing effect on the distribution of income. It uses the National Household Expenditure Survey of 1974–75 to try to quantify the extent of poverty and concludes that the incòme levels of the poor have been underestimated in the past. The evidence suggests also that occupational and regional variables are powerful determinants of income stratification. Wage rate statistics convey information about long‐term trends in income. The article notes considerable increases in rural wages during the 1970s as well as wage improvements in the urban informal sector. Shifts in the structure of employment have probably been the most powerful cause of economic improvement in Brazil. The enormous absorption of rural‐urban migrants occurred without a flooding of the lower income urban categories. Social indicators and statistics referring to ownership of household durable consumer goods corroborate income and labor market evidence to the effect that there has been considerable progress for the poor during the 1970s. The article reviews statistical evidence bearing on distribution. There is little doubt that the distribution of income in Brazil is very skewed. It is not possible, however, to come to conclusions about changes that might have occurred in the degree of inequality over time. Finally, the article includes data on the “distribution of education” and the “distribution of life expectancy” and notes improvement over time in both.This article takes advantage of the Brazilian population census of 1980 to bring up to date some of the statistical material that bears on the issues of poverty and income distribution. First, the article describes the overall context of Brazilian development since 1960. The second part analyzes the extent of poverty in the mid‐1970s. The third part deals with trends in wages, employment and selected welfare indicators. The last section briefly summarizes the information relating to income distribution: what is the extent of skewedness and how has it evolved over time?

Income distribution in Brazil: A regional approach1

This article is an attempt to identify the determinants of regional differences in the distribution of income in Brazil using data from the personal income tax returns from 1970 to 1974. We formulated and tested linear regression models using pooled cross‐section and time series data. The most complete model considered explanatory variables such as: (1)the real mean income of the returns; (2) productive structure of the regions; (3) the proportion of labour income; (4) the proportion of single income tax filings; and (5) a set of dummy variables to capture shifts in the cross‐section relationships over time. This model specification provided a good overall fit, coefficients being, in general, statistically significant and having the appropriate sign. The estimated regression enabled us to make the important prediction that as material progress takes place, inequality will tend to stabilize, but at a much higher level than that presently experienced by developed countries of the western hemisphere.