Ensaios sobre a redução da pobreza rural: Contexto histórico, definição e estimativas

Abstract

Poverty, as a matter of individual privation, is a complex and heterogeneous socioeconomic phenomenon. The present work intends to analyze both the historical determinants, after 1960, of the formation of poverty in Brazilian rural households and the causes of its recent reduction (2002-2009) between the elements income and income inequality. Therefore, the concept of poverty is approached, and the Foster, Greer & Thorbecke index (1984) is used for the analysis. The methodological procedure is divided into two steps: (i) initially, the elasticities poverty-income growth and poverty-income inequality are estimated via the Generalized Method of Moments system applied to panel data, according to Datt and Ravallion (1992), Pinto and Oliveira (2010) and Kalwji and Verschoor (2004); (ii) posteriorly, the elasticities of productive activities towards the variation in rural poverty are estimated via static panel data with fixed effects. The descriptive statistics and estimates of the coefficients are related to microdata of the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (2002 a 2009), provided by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. The main contributions and advances of this research fall into two aspects: it points out the heterogeneity in the performance of economic growth policies and the role of income inequality reduction, both conditioned to the peculiarities of each observation unit, in decreasing rural poverty in Brazil; it presents the importance of the branches of working rural activities with greatest potential to reduce the poverty in the rural area of the country, which has not yet received appropriate attention in economic literature and which provides relevant information to elaborate and conduct public policies. The literature review suggests that rural poverty is a result of the Brazilian process of capitalistic accumulation, associated to the State action. Besides, the results of the estimates indicate that both the elevation of income and the reduction of inequalities are efficient mechanisms to poverty decrease, being one of its effects over time conditioned to the initial development level and to the concentration of initial income in the observation unit. It is possible to perceive the negative correlation between the main labor income and the rural household poverty, this one being more sensitive to people allocated in non-agricultural activities of the service sector.