Counterfactual analysis of income distribution in Brazil

ABSTRACT Using an input-output framework, this article studies the consequences of income redistribution from rich people either to poor people or to the government upon the sectoral structure of the Brazilian economy in the 70’s. Besides the traditional use of elements of sectoral analysis, the main concept used to achieve this goal is that of “subeconomies”, focusing on industries (and associated patterns of employment and value added) which produce the components of particular expenditure bundles. Thus, a subeconomy is composed by the economic activity derived from determined expenditure groups, such as poor consumer households, government, etc. Two main results emerge from the empirical application of these concepts. First, agriculture is the most important sector in the generation of employment in response to transfers of income from rich to poor households. Second, the urbanization which accompanied growth during the 70’s favours a redistributive strategy in which the role of government becomes outstanding in terms of generation of both value added and employment.

摘要 本文采用投入产出框架，针对20世纪70年代的巴西经济，研究了高收入群体向低收入群体或政府进行收入再分配对其产业结构产生的影响。除了运用传统产业分析方法外，本文达成该研究目标的核心概念为“子经济体（subeconomy）”，即聚焦于生产特定消费组合构成品的产业及其关联的就业与增加值模式。据此，子经济体由特定支出群体衍生的经济活动构成，例如低收入消费家庭、政府部门等。通过对上述概念开展实证应用，本文得到两项核心结论：其一，当收入从高收入群体转移至低收入家庭时，农业是创造就业的最重要产业；其二，20世纪70年代伴随经济增长而来的城市化进程，使得政府在创造增加值与就业两方面的作用凸显的再分配策略成为更优选择。