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.