IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/got/iaidps/164.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financial Development and Inequality: Brazil 1985-1994

Author

Listed:
  • Manoel Bittencourt

    (School of Economics, University of Cape Town / South Africa)

Abstract

We examine the impact of financial development on earnings inequality in Brazil in the 1980s and first half of the 1990s. The evidence– based on panel-time series data and analysis–shows that financial development had a significant and robust effect in reducing inequality during the period. We suggest that this is not only because the poorer can invest the acquired credit in either short or long-term productive activities, but also because those with access to financial markets can insulate themselves against recurrent poor macroeconomic performance, which is exemplified by high rates of inflation. The main implication of the results is that a deeper and more active financial sector, alleviates the high inequality seen in Brazil without distorting economic efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Manoel Bittencourt, 2007. "Financial Development and Inequality: Brazil 1985-1994," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 164, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:got:iaidps:164
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.vwl.wiso.uni-goettingen.de/ibero/papers/DB164.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N Fiess & M Fugazza & WF Maloney, 2006. "Informal Labor Markets and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," Working Papers 2006_17, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    2. Albanesi, Stefania, 2007. "Inflation and inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1088-1114, May.
    3. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2002. "Growth Is Good for the Poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 195-225, September.
    4. Greenwood, Jeremy & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1990. "Financial Development, Growth, and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 1076-1107, October.
    5. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James & Thaicharoen, Yunyong, 2003. "Institutional causes, macroeconomic symptoms: volatility, crises and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 49-123, January.
    6. Stephen R. Bond, 2002. "Dynamic panel data models: a guide to micro data methods and practice," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 1(2), pages 141-162, August.
    7. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    8. Clarke, George & Xu, Lixin Colin & Zou, Heng-fu, 2003. "Finance and income inequality : test of alternative theories," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2984, The World Bank.
    9. repec:rus:hseeco:72137 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Philippe Aghion & Patrick Bolton, 1997. "A Theory of Trickle-Down Growth and Development," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(2), pages 151-172.
    11. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    12. Alessandra Bonfiglioli, 2004. "Equities and Inequality," 2004 Meeting Papers 256, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    14. Thomas Piketty, 1997. "The Dynamics of the Wealth Distribution and the Interest Rate with Credit Rationing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(2), pages 173-189.
    15. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    16. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292975.
    17. Stephen Bond, 2002. "Dynamic panel data models: a guide to microdata methods and practice," CeMMAP working papers CWP09/02, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    18. Boyd, John H. & Levine, Ross & Smith, Bruce D., 2001. "The impact of inflation on financial sector performance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 221-248, April.
    19. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2003. "Halving Global Poverty," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    20. Li, Hongyi & Squire, Lyn & Zou, Heng-fu, 1998. "Explaining International and Intertemporal Variations in Income Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 26-43, January.
    21. Mr. Christopher W. Crowe, 2006. "Inflation, Inequality, and Social Conflict," IMF Working Papers 2006/158, International Monetary Fund.
    22. Serena Ng & Pierre Perron, 2001. "LAG Length Selection and the Construction of Unit Root Tests with Good Size and Power," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1519-1554, November.
    23. Peter C. B. Phillips & Hyungsik R. Moon, 1999. "Linear Regression Limit Theory for Nonstationary Panel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(5), pages 1057-1112, September.
    24. A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), 2000. "Handbook of Income Distribution," Handbook of Income Distribution, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    25. Lucas, Robert E, Jr & Stokey, Nancy L, 1987. "Money and Interest in a Cash-in-Advance Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 491-513, May.
    26. Mr. Anoop Singh & Mr. Martin D. Cerisola, 2006. "Sustaining Latin America's Resurgence: Some Historical Perspectives," IMF Working Papers 2006/252, International Monetary Fund.
    27. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10091 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Cysne, Rubens Penha & Maldonado, Wilfredo Fernando Leiva & Monteiro, P. K., 2004. "Inflation and income inequality: a shopping-time aproach: (Forthcoming, Journal of Development Economics)," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 566, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    29. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2007. "Finance, inequality and the poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 27-49, March.
    30. Ricardo Paes de Barros & Carlos Corseuil & Rosane Mendonça & Maurício Cortez Reis, 2015. "Poverty, Inequality and Macroeconomic Instability," Discussion Papers 0093, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA.
    31. Mr. Irineu E de Carvalho Filho & Mr. Marcos d Chamon, 2006. "The Myth of Post-Reform Income Stagnation in Brazil," IMF Working Papers 2006/275, International Monetary Fund.
    32. Erosa, Andres & Ventura, Gustavo, 2002. "On inflation as a regressive consumption tax," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 761-795, May.
    33. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    34. Mr. Anoop Singh, 2006. "Macroeconomic Volatility: The Policy Lessons from Latin America," IMF Working Papers 2006/166, International Monetary Fund.
    35. Anderson, T. W. & Hsiao, Cheng, 1982. "Formulation and estimation of dynamic models using panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 47-82, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Manoel Bittencourt, 2013. "Economic Growth and Inequality: Evidence from the Young Democracies of South America," Working Papers 361, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    2. Bittencourt, Manoel, 2011. "Inflation and financial development: Evidence from Brazil," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 91-99.
    3. Muhammad Shahbaz & Nanthakumar Loganathan & Aviral Tiwari & Reza Sherafatian-Jahromi, 2015. "Financial Development and Income Inequality: Is There Any Financial Kuznets Curve in Iran?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 357-382, November.
    4. Sofia Vale & Francisco Camões, 2023. "Households’ Exposure to the Financial Sector as a Driver of Inequality: An Analysis of Advanced and Emerging Economies," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(2), pages 362-402, June.
    5. Manoel Bittencourt, 2014. "Economic Growth and Inequality: Evidence from the Young Democracies of South America," International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics, in: Macroeconomic Analysis and International Finance, volume 23, pages 37-58, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    6. Manoel Bittencourt, 2010. "Financial Development and Economic Growth in Latin America: Schumpeter is Right!," Working Papers 201014, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    7. Bittencourt, Manoel, 2012. "Financial development and economic growth in Latin America: Is Schumpeter right?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 341-355.
    8. YOUNSI, Moheddine & BECHTINI, Marwa, 2018. "Economic Growth, Financial Development and Income Inequality in BRICS Countries: Evidence from Panel Granger Causality Tests," MPRA Paper 85182, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Yang, Lisha & Ni, Mengying, 2022. "Is financial development beneficial to improve the efficiency of green development? Evidence from the “Belt and Road” countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    10. Sudeshna Ghosh, 2020. "Impact of economic growth volatility on income inequality: ASEAN experience," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 807-850, June.
    11. Kaiyang Zhong, 2022. "Does the digital finance revolution validate the Environmental Kuznets Curve? Empirical findings from China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-19, January.
    12. Xie, Qichang & Ma, Di & Raza, Muhammad Yousaf & Tang, Songlin & Bai, Dingchuan, 2023. "Toward carbon peaking and neutralization: The heterogeneous stochastic convergence of CO2 emissions and the role of digital inclusive finance," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    13. Hamori, Shigeyuki & Hashiguchi, Yoshihiro, 2012. "The effect of financial deepening on inequality: Some international evidence," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 353-359.
    14. Carolyn Chisadza & Mduduzi Biyase, 2023. "Financial Development and Income Inequality: Evidence From Advanced, Emerging and Developing Economies," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(01), pages 1-27, March.
    15. Tristan Canare, 2018. "The Effect of Ease of Doing Business on Firm Creation," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 19(2), pages 555-584, November.
    16. Diana Barros & Aurora A. C. Teixeira, 2021. "Unlocking the black box: A comprehensive meta-analysis of the main determinants of within-region income inequality," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 41(1), pages 55-93, February.
    17. Sintos, Andreas, 2023. "Does inflation worsen income inequality? A meta-analysis," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(4).
    18. Heping Ge & Lianzhen Tang & Xiaojun Zhou & Decai Tang & Valentina Boamah, 2022. "Research on the Effect of Rural Inclusive Financial Ecological Environment on Rural Household Income in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-16, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bittencourt, Manoel, 2011. "Inflation and financial development: Evidence from Brazil," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 91-99.
    2. Manoel BITTENCOURT, 2009. "Macroeconomic Performance And Inequality: Brazil, 1983–94," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 47(1), pages 30-52, March.
    3. Manoel F. Meyer Bittencourt, 2006. "Financial Development and Inequality: Brazil 1985-99," Working Papers 26, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Manoel Bittencourt, 2007. "Macroeconomic Performance and Inequality: Brazil 1983-1994," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 163, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Meshach J. Aziakpono & Nicolette Cattaneo & T. D. Karoro, 2008. "Exchange rate pass-through to import prices in South Africa: Is there asymmetry?," Working Papers 086, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    6. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2023. "Income inequality, inflation and financial development," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 468-487.
    7. Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2009. "Finance and Inequality: Theory and Evidence," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 287-318, November.
    8. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Chen, Ting-Cih & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2020. "Does oil drive income inequality? New panel evidence," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 137-152.
    9. Muhammad Shahbaz & Nanthakumar Loganathan & Aviral Tiwari & Reza Sherafatian-Jahromi, 2015. "Financial Development and Income Inequality: Is There Any Financial Kuznets Curve in Iran?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 357-382, November.
    10. Bonfiglioli, Alessandra, 2012. "Investor protection and income inequality: Risk sharing vs risk taking," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 92-104.
    11. D’Onofrio, Alexandra & Minetti, Raoul & Murro, Pierluigi, 2019. "Banking development, socioeconomic structure and income inequality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 428-451.
    12. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2011. "Nonlinearity in the financial developmentâincome inequality nexus," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 310-325, September.
    13. Madhu Sehrawat & A. Giri, 2016. "Financial development, poverty and rural-urban income inequality: evidence from South Asian countries," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 577-590, March.
    14. Alessandra Bonfiglioli, 2004. "Equities and Inequality," 2004 Meeting Papers 256, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Manthos D. Delis & Iftekhar Hasan & Pantelis Kazakis, 2014. "Bank Regulations and Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(5), pages 1811-1846.
    16. Bittencourt, Manoel, 2012. "Financial development and economic growth in Latin America: Is Schumpeter right?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 341-355.
    17. Pierluigi Murro & Valentina Peruzzi, 2018. "Cooperative banks and income inequality: Evidence from Italian provinces," Working Papers CASMEF 1804, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
    18. Alexandra D'Onofrio & Pierluigi Murro, 2013. "Local banking development and income distribution across Italian provinces," Working Papers CASMEF 1307, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
    19. Raoul Minetti & Pierluigi Murro & Valentina Peruzzi, 2021. "Not All Banks Are Equal: Cooperative Banking And Income Inequality," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 420-440, January.
    20. Minetti, Raoul & Murro, Pierluigi & Peruzzi, Valentina, 2019. "One size does not fit all. Cooperative banking and income inequality," Working Papers 2019-10, Michigan State University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial development; inequality; Brazil;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:got:iaidps:164. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sabine Jaep (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ibgoede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.