This paper examines if taking into account changes in the number of producers, or equivalently changes in the product variety space over the business cycle, helps to understand and replicate international business cycle facts. To this end, we develop a two-country model in which the economy is...

Funções de tributação não-lineares pressupondo obediência ao princípio de sacrifício equitativo são estimadas pelo método de mínimos quadrados ponderados, utilizando dados da Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares (POF) de 2002-2003. Os resultados sugerem que o coeficiente de aversão à...

This paper analyzes the under-investigated relationship uniting financial development and income distribution. We use a novel approach taking into account for the first time the specific channels linking banks, capital markets and income inequality, the time-varying nature of the relationship,...

We examine how inequality measures, data sources, income brackets, ranking variables of tabulated tax data, underestimation of incomes in the bottom of the distribution and the methodology used to correct inequality affects the trends of inequality in total income among adults in Brazil between...

Using the tools of Welfare Economics, the study estimates states' weights in the social welfare function of contemporary Brazil. Based on PNAD 2009 microdata, two methods of calculating the weights were applied: the Equally Distributed Equivalent Income (EDEI) and the average marginal utilities...

This paper aims to describe the ongoing process of regional convergence among Brazilian metropolitan areas and the rest of the country, examining its main reasons and highlighting its importance to the overall decline in income inequality. Our analysis shows that, since the early 1980's, per...

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the origins of a critical process in the North American economy before the subprime crisis, namely, the increasing debt of households. It is argued that causes of this indebtedness are alterations in income distribution (an increased concentration of...

This paper deals with the distributional aspects of Brazilian Civil Servant Pension System. It analyzes, in a counter factual way, the potential implications after the constitution of supplemental retirement pension fund for civil servants, at the light of what is predicted in the 41st...

This paper details the characterization of metropolis capitals and their peripheral municipalities using recent data made available by Brazilian Statistical Foundation (IBGE). The text also investigates the distribution of revenue among municipalities and their financial availability to provide...

Using a factor decomposition of the Gini coefficient we measure the contribution to inequality of direct monetary transfers to and from the Brazilian State. Among the transfers from the State are wages of public workers, pensions and social assistance; the transfers to the State are direct taxes....