This paper analyses the effect of income policies on income distribution in Brazil, its nearterm impacts and potential long-term effects through the distribution of opportunities. It demonstrates the impact of electoral cycles motivating the expansion of monetary transfers. It evaluates the targeting efficiency of the principal income policies in terms of the fiscal costs versus short-term benefits to social welfare. We take advantage of the recent expansion of these benefits to test how this affected the distribution of opportunities.

As the relation between income and well-being, measured by subjective happiness, is not direct, new perspectives are needed. This paper contributes to the discussion by developing a Perceived Human Development Index (PHDI), using the components of the Human Development Index (HDI) – that is, income, health and education – in their subjective versions. The dimension of work conditions was also added to the analysis.

The recently released "Educational PAC" attempts to place basic education at the center of the social debate. We have subsidized this debate, offering a diagnosis of how different education levels can impact individuals' lives through broad and easily interpreted indicators. Initially, we analyze how much each educational level reaches the poorest population. For example, how are those in the bottom strata of income distribution benefited by childcare centers, private secondary education, public university or adult education.

Active participation of Brazilian civil society, coupled with the 2007 education development plan, launched by the Brazilian government provides an interesting example of the influences of the Dakar Goals. The two domestic initiatives share the same name, spirit and direction proposed in Dakar 2000.

Brazil is a country where the 50% poorest detain nearly 10% of its aggregate income and where the 10% richest detain almost 50% of aggregate income4 . The corollary of this high degree of inequality is that if one is only concerned with maximizing the level of the GDP, the implicit social welfare function adopted devotes half of its weight to the well being of 10% of the population. In other words, Brazilian concentration of income creates anomalies within the representative agent assumptions implicit in macroeconomic analysis where people are worth what they earn.

This paper aims at measuring the evolution of income distribution and its determinants during the period of economic reforms. The paper is divided in two parts: the first and main part of the paper explores long-run relations between reforms and income distribution using standard decomposition techniques. The second part explores these relations at a higher frequency. The main empirical strategy pursued in the long-run part of the paper is to establish comparisons between reform related institutional characteristics and income distribution aspects at different points in time.

During the 90’s, the Brazilian economy went thought important changes. The economy was opened to both international commerce and capital flows, inflation rate dropped steeply and the state presence was reduced. These structural changes had important effects on the economic growth and on the labor market. First, the industrial employment fall was compensated by the increase of the commercial and services employment. However, after 1997 this phenomenon almost finished, leading to an increase on the unemployment rate.

This study describes access rates to different types of assets by age groups. The availability of new data sources provides unmatched conditions to do this, in the Brazilian case. The assessment of resources possession was structured under three headings: physical capital (financial assets, durable goods, housing and public services), human capital (schooling, technical education, experience and health) and social capital (participation in political parties, trade unions, associations and family structure).

Este artigo tem como objetivo avaliar o acesso aos diversos tipos de capital por diferentes grupos etários. A disponibilidade de novas fontes de dados fornece, para isso, condições inéditas no caso brasileiro. A análise da posse de recursos foi estruturada em três grupos básicos: capital físico (ativos financeiros, bens duráveis, moradia e serviços públicos); capital humano (escolaridade, treinamento, experiência e saúde); e capital social (participação em partidos políticos, sindicatos, associações e estrutura familiar).

Este artigo objetiva demonstrar que incentivos são capazes de influenciar a decisão do trabalhador autônomo de participar ou não do sistema público de Previdência (INSS) utilizando um arcabouço de Teoria de Contratos (modelo de Principal e Agente). A flexibilização das regras referentes à cessão de benefícios previdenciários para os mais pobres presentes na Constituição Federal de 1988 funciona como um laboratório sobre a reação da contribuição previdenciária a incentivos. A análise empírica, entretanto, contradiz as previsões do modelo teórico.