Orientador: Rodolfo Hoffmann / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-24T21:36:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira_RegisBorgesde_D.pdf: 3846657 bytes, checksum: 6669c57606c98d3daae27bdc6afbce44 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Este trabalho analisa o impacto do salário mínimo sobre a distribuição dos rendimentos no setor agrícola brasileiro entre os anos de 1995 e 2012. Mais precisamente, estuda o efeito do salário mínimo na determinação do rendimento de diferentes categorias de trabalhadores agrícolas, quais sejam: empregados permanentes com ou sem carteira, empregados temporários com ou sem carteira e trabalhadores por conta-própria. Nos últimos 18 anos, o salário mínimo real apresentou crescimento sistemático com efeitos importantes sobre os rendimentos no mercado de trabalho. Paralelamente, observou-se, no Brasil, um movimento sem precedentes, que combinou o crescimento econômico com a redução da desigualdade, tanto quando se analisam os rendimentos do trabalho como o rendimento domiciliar per capita. Evidências empíricas mostraram que o SM foi um dos fatores que contribuiu para a redução da desigualdade, porém seu efeito é distinto quando são considerados as categorias de empregados agrícolas. Utilizando estatísticas descritivas e dois métodos não-paramétricos (densidades de kernel e regressões quantílicas) aplicados aos dados da PNAD/IBGE, o trabalho mostra que para os empregados sem carteira no setor agrícola o SM tem impacto concentrador, na medida em que afeta com mais intensidade os rendimentos localizados na parte superior da distribuição. Chama-se a atenção para a necessidade de aumento da formalização das relações de trabalho no setor, garantindo que os trabalhadores mais pobres sejam beneficiados pelos aumentos reais do salário mínimo / Abstract: This study aims to analyze the impact of the minimum wage on the wage distribution in the Brazilian¿s agricultural sector over the period 1992-2012. More precisely, we study the effect of the minimum wage policy in determining the wage of different categories of agricultural workers, as follows: permanents employees with or without register, temporaries employees with or without register and self-employed workers. Over the past 18 years the real value of the minimum wage has been increased systematically with important effects in the labor market. At the same time, the Brazilian economy has experienced an unprecedented tendency, which combined economic growth with reduced inequality when analyzing both the labor income and the per capita household income. Empirical evidences have showed that the minimum wage was one of the factors that contributed to the fall on inequality, but its effect is different when considering the agricultural employees' categories. Using descriptive statistics and two non-parametric methods (kernel density functions and quantile regressions) applied to the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD/IBGE) data, this work shows that for unregistered workers in the agricultural sector the real minimum wage growth has increased inequality, as far as it affects more intensely the upper tail of the wage distribution. We highlight the necessity of increasing the formalization among agricultural employees, ensuring that the poorest workers also be benefited by the real minimum wage increase / Doutorado / Desenvolvimento Economico, Espaço e Meio Ambiente / Doutor em Desenvolvimento Economico

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This thesis is concerned with two main questions. Do systemic banking crises substantially affect the income distribution in a country? Is income inequality a destabilising factor for the macro-economy? In order to answer the first question, this thesis examines a panel of 26 countries since 1900 and assembles a new database of crises, finding that the impact of major banking crises on the national income shares detained by the income groups within the richest decile is mostly small in magnitude. Indeed, the estimated impact is never bigger than a standard deviation of the specific top shares under investigation. Results are also confirmed in a separate analysis for the United States and are robust to a series of checks. These findings lend indirect support to the structuralist hypothesis that only substantial changes in government policies and institutional frameworks can bring about radical changes in income distribution. The analysis also highlights interesting heterogeneity across different income groups, country groups and time periods. The second question is addressed by making use of a newly assembled database on different dimensions of economic inequality. The new data helps to reject the statistical validity of the hypotheses that either growing inequality or a high level of inequality may systematically precede the onset of major banking crises. In addition, simulations based on the UK Family Expenditure Survey data find that even a full equalisation of income would increase the aggregate consumption by 3 percentage points at most. These findings, taken together, point out that an increase in income inequality may not concur to reduce the pressure on aggregate demand or be adduced as a structural factor of financial instability. Nonetheless, the evidence is not yet clear cut as the work further documents that periods of increasing income inequality in the UK were also associated with a reduction of the saving rates across the whole income distribution since 1968. The analysis contends that such evidence of under-saving behaviour may be consistent with the relative income hypothesis and some of its recent formulations such as the ’expenditure cascades’ theory.

Recent large-N studies conclude that inequality and ethnic distribution have no significant impact on the risk of civil conflict. This study argues that such conclusions are erroneous and premature due to incorrect specification of independent variables and functional forms. Case studies suggest that measures of inter-group inequality (horizontal inequality) and polarization (ethnic distribution distance from a bipolar equilibrium) are more accurate predictors of civil conflict, as they better capture the group-motivation aspect of conflict. This study explores whether indicators of inequality and ethnic distribution impact the probability of civil conflict across 38 developing countries in the period 1986 to 2004. Analysis reveals that horizontal inequality and polarization have significant, robust relationships with civil conflict. Furthermore, vertical, or individual, inequality is a robust, significant predictor of civil conflict when specified as a nonlinear function.

This study analyzes economic and governmental factors in political violence, using both a cross-national quantitative analysis and an historical case study of El Salvador. Since at least the time of Aristotle, political violence has been a concern of social philosophers and social scientists. While it has often been seen primarily as revolutionary, political violence can be reconceptualized to include violent acts for political purposes carried out by an established regime as well as by its opponents. Such a broadening of the concepts facilitates neutral measurements of political violence, such as by death rate per population from domestic political conflict. For convenience, useful theories of political violence may be broken down into two main types. The first type, which may be called inequality theory, postulates some type of inequality, generally economic inequality, as a major cause of political violence. The second type of theory, which may be referred to as collective action theory, generally emphasizes the influence of the political interaction of competing actors. Other theories stress factors such as land inequality and population density. The cross-national analysis of this study found that income inequality and government sanctions were two of the more robust independent variables contributing to political violence. Similarly, the historical case study of El Salvador, particularly a comparison of the outbreaks of political violence occurring in 1932 and in 1979-84, suggests an important role in political violence was played by both income inequality and government sanctions. The findings that both of these variables contribute significantly and simultaneously to political violence implies that inequality theory and collective action theory may be partly compatible with each other. Also, the relationship between income inequality and political violence was found to be much stronger than the relationship between land inequality and political violence. This finding suggests that attempts to prevent political violence solely by addressing land inequality, as in many government land reform programs, will likely fall as long as they do not address the more fundamental factor of income inequality.

D.Comm. / This thesis endeavoured to assess whether the government can simultaneously achieve the objectives of sustained economic growth, income redistribution and fiscal discipline, as stated in the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy. The simultaneous realisation of these objectives of the GEAR policy brings about controversies between the South African government and other interest groups, such as the trade unions and some academics. Empirical analysis such as econometrics and computerised general equilibrium (hereafter referred to as CGE) techniques were used in an attempt to solve the research question. The Kalman filter technique was applied to model total factor productivity and to establish the link between social services expenditure and economic growth in South Africa. The structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) technique was applied to assess the dynamics of fiscal shocks on output growth and determine the type of taxes that are distortionary in financing the increase in social services expenditure. The study’s main contribution is the application of the CGE technique to assess whether the above three objectives can be reached simultaneously. A new CGE model was built, based on the standard CGE model by Thurlow and Van Seventer (2002). In the new CGE model, some taxes were changed to endogenous variables instead of exogenous variables or parameters as in the standard model. The model introduced a number of government macro closure rules to clear the government balance. The research lead to the following conclusion: When constraints on employment are removed across all the labour categories in South Africa, and the government uses compositional shift of its expenditure to finance the continual increase in social services expenditure, the three objectives, namely fair redistribution of iv income, fiscal discipline and sustained economic growth, will be reached simultaneously. It is recommended that the government fix conditions in the labour market to remove impediments to employment in South Africa (such as lack of appropriate skills for specific activities), as this will enable the government to achieve most of its objectives.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in 50% fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management (in the field of Public Policy). 17 June 2016 / This paper investigates the nature of relationship between income inequality and consumption expenditure by households. The link between the distribution of income and household spending was determined by exploring the relationship between income inequality and household saving. The econometric estimates show that the propensity of the bottom earners to consume is higher than that of the high income earners. The conclusions from this paper are that; the bottom earners used credit to smooth their consumption expenditure, income inequality has not boosted saving of the top earners and wealth inequality has a minimal effect (although positive) on aggregate consumption Some of these finding are consistent with the theoretical view on income and wealth inequality (Kaldor, 1957) and Aghion et al. (1999). The absence of coping mechanism (such as access to credit and employment), suggests high inequality might result in a decline in the household demand, since the bottom and low earners has high marginal propensities to consume compared with that of the top earners. The existence of imperfect capital markets suggests distributive policies and economic growth are important channels for reducing income and wealth disparities in South Africa. / MB2016

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2016. / The study articulates the key indicators that are drivers of poverty and inequality in the post-apartheid society. Historically, education, employment, household income and service delivery were not used as the foundation for measuring poverty and inequality in the country. Specific objectives for this study are to interrogate the key determinants that have influenced poverty and inequality in South Africa since 1994, and to investigate how the predictors of life circumstances and service delivery changed across the population over the period 1994–2007. Descriptive analysis was used on household surveys (General Household Survey (GHS) 2002–2011, Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) 2008–2011 and Living Conditions Survey (LCS) 2008 and 2011) to determine changes and trends in the living conditions of the population. Multivariate analytical approaches were applied on CS 2007 data with a sample of 360 000 households conducted by Statistics South Africa. Statistical regression models were developed for life circumstances and service delivery measures to explain poverty and inequality. Principal component analysis was applied on CS 2007 to promote multidimensional approaches for poverty and inequality measurement using development indicators as the components for life circumstances and service delivery. The main findings of the study show that low levels of education and high unemployment are the determinants of poverty and inequality. Positive linear relationships between educational attainment and age, employment and population group, age, sex and educational level of household head were established. Income disparities further perpetuate disparities in life circumstances and service delivery. Disparities service delivery are not the determinants but the consequences of poverty and inequality. Poverty and inequality in South Africa are structural showing that, while many people progressed in the last twenty-two years, many remained behind, and even progressed negatively as they remained worse off based on data since the 1996 census. While much work has been conducted on life circumstances such as education, employment and income, work on service delivery in relation to poverty is still limited and thus deserves more attention / GR2018

Series: INEQ Working Paper Series

Este trabalho tem como objetivo principal avaliar o comportamento da distribuição da renda domiciliar per capita na Região Norte do Brasil de 2004 a 2012. Como objetivos complementares, buscou-se: expor o debate existente na literatura recente sobre distribuição de renda no Brasil; determinar as causas imediatas de eventuais diferenças da distribuição da RDPC da Região Norte com base no grau de progressividade das parcelas da renda; analisar o efeito-composição e o efeitoconcentração da variação do índice de Gini das parcelas da RDPC, de 2004 a 2012. Para atingir esses objetivos utilizou-se, como metodologia, o cálculo dos Índices de Gini, Mehran e Piesch e suas respectivas decomposições considerando parcelas da renda. Como base de dados, foram utilizados os microdados da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) para o período analisado. Como resultados, os índices de desigualdade da RDPC da Região Norte apresentaram comportamento diferente aos do Brasil e aos da maioria das demais Regiões oficiais, sendo parecidos aos que a Região Centro-Oeste (em especial o DF) apresentou. O índice de Gini da RDPC dos Estados da Região Norte tiveram comportamento não homogêneo no período analisado. A parcela da RDPC formada pela renda de militar e funcionário público da Região Norte se destacou por ter o maior grau de progressividade negativo em comparação ao do Brasil e do Distrito Federal, enquanto que a parcela \"outros rendimentos\" teve o maior grau de progressividade positivo, sendo responsável por 56,7% da mudança do índice de Gini de 2004 a 2012. Tanto o Brasil quanto a Região Norte registram aumento da escolaridade média. Porém, enquanto que no Brasil a dispersão da escolaridade diminui, na Região Norte aumenta, o que aumenta a dispersão dos rendimentos e, por sua vez, a desigualdade da renda. / The main objective of this study was to evaluate the distribution of the per capita household income (PCHI) in Northern Brazil from 2004 to 2012. As complementary objectives, we sought to: expose the existing debate in the recent literature on income distribution in Brazil; determine immediate causes of eventual differences of the PCHI in Northern Brazil based on the degree of progressivity of the income components; assess the effect-composition and effect-concentration of the variation of Gini index for the components of PCHI from 2004 to 2012. In order to achieve these goals the methodology was based on the calculations of Gini, Mehran and Piesch indices and their respective decompositions considering income components. Microdata of the National Research for Sample of Domiciles (PNAD) were used as the database for the analyzed period. Results showed that the inequality indices of the PCHI of the Northern region had a behavior different from the ones of Brazil and most of the other official regions, being similar to those of the Midwest region (in particular, Federal District). The Gini index of PCHI of Northern region states had a non-homogenous behavior in the analyzed period. The PCHI component formed by the military and civil servant household income in the Northern region had the highest negative degree of progressivity compared to the ones of Brazil and Federal District; while the \"other incomes\" component had the highest positive degree of progressivity, being responsible for 56.7% of the change in the Gini index from 2004 to 2012. Both Brazil and the Northern region have shown increase of average schooling. However, while schooling dispersion decreases in Brazil, it increases in the Northern region, which intensifies income dispersion and, consequently, income inequality.