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Growth and distribution in Brazil the 21st century: revisiting the wage-led versus profit-led debate

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  • Laura Carvalho
  • Fernando Rugitsky

Abstract

In the 2000s, several Latin American economies, and Brazil in particular, have engaged in relatively successful attempts to combine higher economic growth and lower income inequality. As the Brazilian economy slowed down in the last few years, the sustainability of this growth model has been put into question. After studying the impact of different redistributive policies (like minimum wage and income transfers) on the personal and functional distributions of income in Brazil, the paper discusses the response of aggregate consumption, investment and net exports – as well as of the economy’s productive structure and inflation rate – to the changes in income distribution itself and other relevant factors. The analysis allows us both to draw lessons to the Neo-Kaleckian literature on demand regimes, pointing towards the importance of some theoretical extensions, and to examine future prospects for the Brazilian economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Carvalho & Fernando Rugitsky, 2015. "Growth and distribution in Brazil the 21st century: revisiting the wage-led versus profit-led debate," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2015_25, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    • Handle: RePEc:spa:wpaper:2015wpecon25
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    Cited by:

    1. Fernando Rugitsky, 2016. "Growth, distribution, and sectoral heterogeneity: Reading the Kaleckians in Latin America," Economia, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics], vol. 17(3), pages 265-278.
    2. Brenck, Clara & Carvalho, Laura, 2020. "The equalizing spiral in early 21st century Brazil: a Kaleckian model with sectoral heterogeneity," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 298-310.
    3. Antonio Soares Martins Neto, 2017. "Income distribution and external constraint: Brazil in the commodities boom [Income distribution and external constraint: Brazil in the commodities boom]," Nova Economia, Economics Department, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil), vol. 27(1), pages 7-34, January-A.
    4. Fernando Rugitsky, 2017. "The rise and fall of the Brazilian economy (2004-2015): the economic antimiracle," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2017_29, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    5. Julia Burle Gonçalves, 2018. "Distribuição De Renda E Demanda Agregada No Brasil(1995-2015): Uma Análise De Extensões Aos Modelos Neo-Kaleckianos Pelo Método Var," Anais do XLIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 44th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 80, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    6. Guilherme Klein Martins & Fernando Rugitsky, 2018. "The commodities boom and the profit squeeze: output and profit cycles in Brazil (1996-2016)," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2018_09, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    demand regimes; functional and personal income distribution; Brazilian economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E11 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

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