Regional Development and Regional Inequality: An Overview of the Brazilian Economy

Abstract

The present configuration of Brazil’s economic space is heavily rooted in the development path followed by the country since colonial times. The uneven distribution of wealth in the Brazilian territory is characterized by a high concentration of resources in the Center-South portion of the country. In the classification adopted in B-MARIA, in which the regional setting consists of three different regions – North, Northeast, and Center-South (Rest of Brazil), the latter comprises the more dynamic regions of the Southeast and South, as well as the Center-West (Map 1.1). This classification, heavily constrained by data availability, considers the Southeast, South and Center-West regions as a single region, precluding the analysis of each of these regions individually. However, the regional delimitation still offers a great range of analytical possibilities focusing on the less developed regions of the North and Northeast Brazil. The degree of regional inequality in Brazil can be gauged from Table 1.1 below, which shows the proportion of the average per capita output of each region to the national average per capita output. While the Northeast presented, in 1994, an average per capita output 50% below of the national average, and the North reached only 68.0% of the national average, the other regions, especially the Southeast, showed indicators substantially above the national average. These differences in regional wealth are accompanied by impressive differences in regional social indicators as well, which can be summarized by the poverty incidence indicator estimated by IPEA: in 1990, 40.9% of the population in the Northeast were considered to be indigent, in contrast to 13.9% in the North, 12.4% in the Southeast, 18.1% in the South, and 16.1% in the Center-West (Guimarães Neto, 1995).