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The Regional Question in Brazil: Nature, Causes and Policies

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  • Alexandre Rands Barros

    (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco)

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the nature of the Brazilian Regional inequalities, focusing on some basic statistics and recent estimations that indicate that it arises mainly from differences on individual endowments (human capital) in the many regions, rather than on differences on the income captured by individual valuable attributes. It also reviews the major hypotheses to explain the inequalities and presents an alternative view, which argues that there is an equilibrium with inequalities that persists along time. Historical features of the colonial settlements in each region justified the original differences in their human capital. The paper then reviews the major regional policies applied in Brazil, hitherto, and evaluates them on the light of the hypothesis forwarded. The conclusion is that, as they did not tackle the major cause of inequalities, they end up generating limited results.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre Rands Barros, 2009. "The Regional Question in Brazil: Nature, Causes and Policies," Working Papers 50, Datamétrica Consultoria Econômica, revised 2009.
    • Handle: RePEc:dtm:wpaper:50
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    regional development; Brazilian Regional inequalities; Regional inequalities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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