Income Inequality of the Brazilian Amazon Population

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the behavior of income distribution in the Amazonian States of Brazil from 2004 to 2015. As complementary objectives, we sought to determine the immediate causes of any differences of Household Income Per Capita (HIPC) distribution in the Legal Amazon, based on the static decomposition of the Gini Index, and to analyze the dynamic decomposition of the Gini Index considering HIPC portions. This methodology used microdata from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) for the analyzed period. As a result, the Gini index of the Legal Amazon HIPC performed differently from that of Brazil (without Legal Amazon). The HIPC portion formed by the income of military and civil servants from the Legal Amazon stood out for having the highest degree of negative progressivity when compared to the rest of the country, whereas “government transfers” had the highest degree of positive progressivity, being responsible for 36.7 of the Gini Index variation from 2004 to 2015.