How much of Brazilian Inequality can we explain?

2008

Brazil is well-known for its very high level of inequality. Understanding the key determinants of this inequality is the principal aim of this study. In order to reach this purpose, the present work firstly sketches a poverty and inequality analysis for Brazil and then investigates the main determinants of inequality by applying several decomposition techniques by using the annual Brazilian household survey for 2002. Numerous techniques are developed, split into two approaches: inequality decomposition by indexes and regression-based inequality decomposition. Using the first methodology, a decomposable class of inequality measures is analysed by considering households characteristics such as geographic location, gender, age and ethnicity. For regression-based decomposition analysis, the present work employs the Field decomposition and the Oaxaca decomposition. We confirm the findings of other studies by verifying that Brazilian inequality is primarily rooted in the differences acros...

Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2008

2005

This paper illustrates two empirical approaches to the measurement of multidimensional inequality. The first approach is based on the analysis of the independent distribution of monetary and nonmonetary welfare attributes. The second approach considers pair-wise joint distributions of those attributes, hence allowing for differences in the various distributions, as well as possible correlations between the attributes. The analysis is based on household survey data from Brazil for 1996. We focus on inequalities in income, education, health and political participation outcomes. We calculate the extent of vertical and horizontal monetary and non-monetary inequalities, examine the determinants of both types of inequality and analyse their impact on household welfare. Our results show that economic analyses based solely on the distribution of income variables will not portray fully the degree of socioeconomic and political inequalities in Brazil. In fact, traditional analysis of inequality may overestimate the extent of inequality, as education and other non-monetary welfare attributes appear to be more equally distributed in Brazil than income.

Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, 2009

This study investigates Brazilian poverty by exploiting geographical differences in the cost of living. We apply the reformulation of the FGT class of poverty measures proposed by . This decomposition aims to compute poverty within groups, using group-specific poverty lines, and poverty between groups by adopting a communitywide poverty line. Our findings suggest that the analysis of poverty between and within groups is more exhaustive than the standard methodology when differentiated poverty lines are exploited. 2 There are several studies showing that in Brazil non-monetary features are not equally distributed. For example, Justino et al. (2004) analyze the uneven distribution of education, health status and political participation.

IMF Working Papers, 2017

In this study, we document the decline in income inequality and a convergence in consumption patterns in Brazilian states in a new database constructed from micro data from the national households' survey. We adjust the state-Gini coefficients for spatial price differences using information on households' rental prices available in the survey. In a panel regression framework, we find that labor income growth, formalization, and schooling contributed to the decline in inequality during 2004-14, but redistributive policies, such as Bolsa Família, have also played a positive role. Going forward, it will be important to phase out untargeted subsidies, such as public spending on tertiary education, and contain growth of public sector wages, to improve budgetary efficiency and protect gains in equality.

2015

This essay seeks to point the trends and recent dynamics of income distribution in Brazil from various perspectives. While the previous paper (Paper C Brazil) aimed to establish the relation between regimes of accumulation and labour market dynamics with the evolution of income distribution building on a historical perspective, this paper aims to identify, over and beyond the evolution of indicators, the new inequality patterns in order to show how spatial and social cleavages were reorganized as well as the orientation of the country’s class structure. Micro-data provided by the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD, from the Portuguese Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios) of Brazil’s national statistics office Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) has been used for selected years between 1979and 2011.

World Development, 1987

Regional disparities in living standards within Brazil have received increasing attention in recent years. Drawing on the ENDEF consumption survey, this paper indicates that, although costs of living adjustments narrow spatial differences, large regional disparities remain, particularly upon comparing the Northeast and the Southeast. The application of price indices reduces urban-rural variations more thlani regional differences, drastically narrowing the urban-rural gap in food consumption. Poverty is, nevertheless, much more concentrated in the rural areas than in the urban areas, although regional differences in its incidence are more striking than the urban-rural divergcrncies.

Country Studies, 2004

printed on recycled paper 1 2 3 4 06 05 04 World Bank Country Studies are among the many reports originally prepared for internal use as part of the continuing analysis by the Bank of the economic and related conditions of its developing member countries and to facilitate its dialogues with the governments. Some of the reports are published in this series with the least possible delay for the use of governments, and the academic, business, financial, and development communities. The manuscript of this paper therefore has not been prepared in accordance with the procedures appropriate to formally-edited texts. Some sources cited in this paper may be informal documents that are not readily available. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply on the part of the World Bank any judgment of the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. The material in this publication is copyrighted. The World Bank encourages dissemination of its work and normally will grant permission for use.

Brazilian Review of Econometrics

Inequality decomposition by factor components is extended to the Mehran and Piesch indices, comparing them with the decomposition of the Gini index, the squared coefficient of variation and the Theil's T coefficient. The decomposition procedure is applied to the distribution of per capita household income in Brazil in 1999, considering six components: earnings of civil servants and military personnel, earnings of other employees, earnings of self-employed workers, earnings of employers, pensions and, finally, all other incomes. One of the results is that for all the five measures used, the concentration ratio of pensions is higher than the overall index of inequality, indicating that this component is contributing to the increase in income inequality.

2008

This thesis is a collection of three essays on poverty, inequality and well-being for Brazil. The first chapter aims at understanding the key determinants of the Brazilian inequality. this chapter firstly sketches a poverty and inequality analysis for Brazil and then investigates the main determinants of inequality, particularly racial and geographical differences, by applying several decomposition techniques. the second chapter investigates Brazilian poverty by exploiting geographical differences and questions whether the standard approach in measuring poverty is informative enough taking into consideration that the population is clearly heterogeneous. The first two chapters of this work apply techniques able to measure and decompose both poverty and inequality within the context of the standard monetary approach. The purpose of the last chapter is to enlarge the perspective of our analysis by adopting the capability approach. hence the third chapter aims to model and estimate the ...