IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ekm/repojs/v13y1993i2p248-271id1325.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Régis Bonelli
  • Lauro Ramos

Abstract

The paper analyses the Brazilian size distribution of income with the objective of identifying to what extent economic policies, macroeconomic performance and changes in the structure of the labor force are related to inequality. There is evidence of long term increases in inequality, especially between 1960 and 1970. Long term trends do not seem to be affected by economic performance, although the stagnation of the 1980s has led to absolute income losses for all individuals except those in the top percentile. Short term behavior, on the other hand, seems to have been influenced by economic performance: there is evidence that growth enhances equity, whereas high inflation has the opposite effect. A decomposition analysis highlights the importance of education in explaining inequality, but points to changes in the structure of the labor force as the major factor in accounting for changes in inequality since the mid-1970s. JEL Classification: O15.

Suggested Citation

  • Régis Bonelli & Lauro Ramos, 1993. "Income distribution in Brazil: evaluation of the long-term tendencies and changes in inequality since mid-1970s," Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Center of Political Economy, vol. 13(2), pages 248-271.
    • Handle: RePEc:ekm:repojs:v:13:y:1993:i:2:p:248-271:id:1325
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org.br/repojs/index.php/journal/article/view/1325/1311
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income distribution; inequality; wages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ekm:repojs:v:13:y:1993:i:2:p:248-271:id:1325. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Brazilian Journal of Political Economy (Brazil) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org/repojs/index.php/journal/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.