Distribuição mundial da renda no pós-guerra, crescimento econômico e desigualdade entre países - 1950/88

Abstract

The paper investigates changes in the world distribution of income from 1950 to 1988 utilizing purchasing power parity indices to allow for meaningful comparisons both over time and among countries. Two conclusions are worth mentioning. First, that, except for the period 1960/70, the long term trend in income inequality among countries as measured by Gini indices estimated at end point decade data points to a reduction of inequality. Sencond, the world distribution of income is so concentrated that large changes in per capita income in a few countries have a large effect on aggregate inequality-although these countries are not necessarily the richest in terms of per capita income, but among the largest in terms of population and/or the ones that have grown faster. The paper also gives some attention to the hypothesis that the poorer countries have grown faster than the richer ones - i. e., that exists long term convergence in terms of per capita income among countries - but the results are not strong enough to warrant more solid conclusions.