Inequality and Economic Development in Brazil
This study addresses three questions : why do inequalities matter for Brazil's development? Why does Brazil occupy a position of very high inequality in the international community? And, What should public policy do about it? Excessive income...
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Format: | Publication |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
Washington, DC
2013
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Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/01/5160402/inequality-economic-development-brazil http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14913 |
Summary: | This study addresses three questions :
why do inequalities matter for Brazil's development?
Why does Brazil occupy a position of very high inequality in
the international community? And, What should public policy
do about it? Excessive income inequality is unfair, and
undesirable on ethical grounds, and can bring adverse
effects on economic growth, health outcomes, social
cohesion, and crime. Brazil's excessive income
inequality is associated to regressive public transfers,
less equitable distribution of education, and higher wage
differentials. It is thus suggested that Brazil's
strategy to fight inequality should focus on four areas that
are good for reducing inequality, good for reducing poverty,
and good for increasing efficiency, competitiveness, and
growth: raising the level, and reducing the inequities of
educational attainment, reducing the wage skill premium of
post-secondary education, reallocating public expenditure
away from excessive, and regressive transfers, and taking
advantage of the opportunity to implement an indirect tax
reform, that can reduce the inequity of indirect taxation.
Despite the absence of explicit tradeoffs between equity,
and efficiency, these policies do not benefit everyone, and
they do involve inevitable political choices. |
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