Brazil's Top Addresses for the Wealthy

 This section is all about why inequality is like, way higher in some countries than others, with like, major focus on Brazil. Secondly, it peeps at the factors that make inequality go cray cray within a country, like the stuff researchers found before and the way they figured out those factors. Lastly in this section, we gotta pick some variables to use in the decomposition in section five. OMG, check out Figure 2.1, it's like the iconic Kuznets' curve, ya know? It's like, showing how income per capita and inequality are totally connected. At first, the income per capita is hella low and everyone is broke AF. But like, as economic development goes on, some peeps escape from poverty while others don't, which like, increases inequality, ya know? This also shows that a more unequal society is not, like, def less preferable to a more equal society, ya know?

Kuznets (1955) is like, so old school, fam.

There are like, way more things to think about, but like, a society that's totally equal but super broke probably isn't gonna be the top choice for most people compared to a society that's a little richer but more unequal, ya know? At a certain stage of development, more and more peeps flex on poverty, making it a mad equal society again. One of the variables of possible influence is ethnic frac. Countries with mad diversity in ethnic groups are hella likely to have a higher level of inequality, ya know? Another big vibe is like, education and skill levels, you know? If these levels of input are hella diverse in a country, chances are that inequality in output (income, consumption, wealth, living conditions) is mad big as well. A third point of attention is like, totally drawn to politics, fam. A country with a majoritarianistic government is like, probs gonna be way more unequal than a country with proportional representation, ya know? But like, economists aren't totally sure if this whole cause and effect thing could be, like, reversed or whatever. Since a country with proportional representation probs has more redistribution than a majoritarian country would (Glaeser 2005). "Everyone's got a second crib by the beach, and if not, they just flex on a rental." This is something a young lawyer said while we were vibin' at his firm in Sao Paulo in 2006. Obvi our response was like, nah fam, that ain't the vibe we got from visiting Brazil on an international research project. We haven't been to favela's but peeping them from a lil' distance is hella striking too. Especially when just ten minutes before we drove past some lit AF villa's. 

But like, this is Brazil, one of the most unequal countries ever. Ppl who do have money don't wanna talk about the big inequality in their country. 

When asked about it they'll be like, "Yeah, so like, three sentences max, and then they're all like, 'Anyway, let's talk about something else.'" Brazilians are hella proud to be like that and don't like to think or talk about the flaws of their lit country. So like, there's been mad research on the inequality in Brazil, which is like one of the most unequal countries ever. Ranging from mad descriptive studies to studies that assess the causes of inequality or the effects it has on the country and its people, ya know? In 2004 a World Bank country study was published called "Inequality and Economic Development in Brazil", fam. Yo, this country study be all about three main questions: why do inequalities matter for Brazil's development, fam? Why does Brazil be all like super unequal in the global community? And, what should public policy do about it, fam? Background papers collected in this country study flex on the factors that make Brazil's inequality so whack. They peep both the outcome inequality and the opportunity inequality, ya know? Finding the tea on inequality and checking how it's affecting everything is what a lot of papers have been vibing with lately. In 2006 Ferreira et al. dropped a lit paper breaking down Brazil's vibes from 1981 to 2004. After that, like, so many more papers were published on the development of inequality in Brazil, ya know? They were totally focusing mainly on the effects of policy, fam. OMG, the tea is that inequality in Brazil has been lowkey declining since 2004. Like, the stats don't lie, sis! But like, how did the underlying determinants even come to be? What's the tea on the trends that Ferreira et al. (2006) spilled in their research?

This thesis is all about answering this lit research question: How did the trends in determinants of inequality in Brazil develop since 2004? Flexin' hard, fam!

In order to answer this main research question, the thesis is like split into 7 parts, and this intro is like section one, ya know? Each of the following sections will spill the tea on some sub-questions that, like, totally add up to an answer to the main research question. The sub-questions are like totally listed in box 1, fam. Sec two spills the tea on the research that's been done before. It's like, all about the tea on inequality in different countries, fam. The methodolgy used to find determinants of inequality is like totally discussed, ya know? Then a summary is like made of determinants found in earlier research and like a selection of variables is made for the decomposition. Sec three be hittin' up dem measures of inequality, ya know? The desired vibes of a lit inequality measure are like totally discussed and we choose the measures to flex in the decomposition. Sec four gives the tea on how the decomp should be seen, ya know? This section is like, all about how Brazil's inequality has evolved over time, ya know? It also be like comparing Brazil's inequality to the rest of Latin America and the World, ya know? Section five contains the actual decomp after first flexing on the equations and spilling some tea on the data used in the decomp. Sec 6 be lookin' at the trends in determinants of inequality in Brazil, ya know? Section seven is where all the tea spills and we start asking some lit research questions, fam.