Inequality-income relationship in Brazil and its regions: Kuznets curve and the "N" hypothesis for municipal indicators in multiple dimensions

Abstract

Poverty and inequality are multidimensional phenomena. Considering this argument and information from Brazilian municipalities for years 2000 and 2010, this study aims to evaluate the existence of inequalities in other dimensions than income in Brazilian municipalities, and to discuss how their respective dynamics relate to the level of municipal per capita income. Therefore, were calculated municipal inequality indicators in "multiple dimensions" to test three hypotheses: i) inequalities in all dimensions analyzed (work, education, health, housing and urban mobility) are related to income concentration, despite this not being the only determinant; ii) the relationship between inequality indicators and economic development (or growth) follows an inverted “U” shape, as advocated Kuznets Curve Hypothesis (CK); or iii) an N-shaped curve, in accordance with recent works that challenge the traditional CK. In order to achieve our goal, panel and cross-sectional econometric estimations were performed. In general, the results support the first and third hypotheses, indicating that economic development (or growth) is not always equitable and that inequality is a multidimensional phenomenon.