복지와 성장의 선순환: 브라질의 경험

초록

Inequality is a distinctive feature of Latin America due to its high level and persistence. However, income equality has been improving in most Latin American countries since the end of the 1990s. From an unweighted average of 0.530 in the late 1990s, the Gini coefficient for household per capita income fell to 0.497 in 2010. Of the 17 countries, 13 experienced a decline, while the Gini increased in other parts of the world. Previous studies have identified various factors that improve income inequality, and our study focuses on the role of the social welfare system in this process. The Brazilian economy is currently enjoying a virtuous cycle of falling inequality and economic growth under a new social welfare system which includes a minimum wage and conditional social support programs. The minimum wage is indexed to price changes and the growth rate in a way that guarantees real income improvements, thus resembling the method of setting wages under a Fordist approach. The indexing of pensions and social support programs to the minimum wage allows various social classes to benefit simultaneously from economic growth. Conditional social support is designed both to allow wage earners to earn a living and to contribute to the formation of human capital. In 2003 the Brazilian government introduced the Bols Familia program, building on a previous conditional cash- transfer program. Since 2003, expenditure on Bolsa Familia increased from 4.8 billion to 20.7 billion, moving from 0.2percent of GDP to 0.5 percent of GDP. The focus is on helping the extremely poor, and the program remains well targeted. Thus, the success of the new social welfare system facilitates the emergence of a new middle class, which then leads to consumption-driven growth.

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