Trabalho, transferências e desigualdade: A curva de Kuznets para o Nordeste

Abstract

The Kuznets hypothesis provides an association between economic growth and income inequality that takes the shape of an inverted U. Generally, such hypothesis is tested based on regressions involving income per capita and an index of inequality. This paper proposes an alternative analysis of the Kuznets hypothesis for the Northeast Region of Brazil based on a vector decomposition of income. All data are available on the Atlas of Human Development in Brazil - UNDP. In contrast to previous analysis, this analysis seeks to break down the per capita income in representative vectors of labor income and government transfers, allowing a deeper analysis of the factors that influence the relationship growth - equity. Moreover, also in contrast to previous studies, the analysis here follows the work of Huang et al.(2007), and tests the validity of the Kuznets hypothesis through the use of quantile regression. Our results validate the Kuznets hypothesis and suggest that the effects of labor income are more efficient than the effects of government transfers in reducing income inequality.