THE RISE AND FALL OF BRAZILIAN INEQUALITY: 1981–2004

By Francisco H. G. Ferreira, P. Leite, Julie Litchfield. Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2006

191 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Brazil's Gini coefficient rose from 0.57 in 1981 to 0.63 in 1989, before falling back to 0.56 in 2004. Poverty incidence rose from 0.30 in 1981 to 0.33 in 1993, before falling to 0.22 in 2004. This paper presents a preliminary investigation of the determinants of Brazil's distributional reversal over this period. The rise in inequality in the 1980s appears to have been driven by increases in educational attainment in a context of convex returns, and by high and accelerating inflation. Although the secular decline in inequality, which began in 1993, is associated with declining inflation, it also appears to have been driven by four structural and policy changes, namely, declining returns to education; pronounced rural-urban convergence; increases in social assistance transfers targeted to the poor; and a possible decline in racial inequality. Falling inequality has made a substantial contribution to poverty reduction.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bdf6e2176e63174b0151c0cfeeaad6046c025191

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Citations in the corpus

The Effects of Brazil’s Taxation and Social Spending on the Distribution of Household Income (2014, unknown): “fiscal policy, poverty, inequality, Brazil Historically, Brazil has had one of the highest levels of inequality in the world; in 1989, its Gini coefficient of 0.63 was second only to Sierra Leone (Ferreira, Leite, and Litchfield 2008).”
Decomposing the recent inequality decline in Latin America (2013, background): “…of the 1990s (Ebherhard and Engel 2009 for Chile), favorable international markets with high commodity prices in the second half of the 2000s (Ferreira et al 2008 for Brazil), and a more active role in the labor market where governments took a more prounion stance and raised minimum wages…”
Recent Trends in Income Inequality in Latin America (2011, methodology): “Source: own calculations based on WIDER, Gasparini (2003), and SEDLAC (CEDLAS and World Bank).”
Agriculture in Brazil: impacts, costs, and opportunities for a sustainable future (2010, background): “Figure 3 compares the income Gini coefficient to the GDP per capita (PPP US$ 2005) for most countries of the world; it calls attention to the fact that Brazil has an intermediate GDP per capita (PPP US$ 2005) compared to other countries, but still maintains substantial income inequality [15 ].”
A Comparative Perspective on Poverty Reduction in Brazil, China, and India (2009, methodology): “6 Ferreira et al. (2009) provide estimates for Brazil’s national poverty line, which is about $3 a day.”