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Brazil's slow pace of poverty reduction over the last two decades reflects both low growth and a low growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Using GDP data disaggregated by state and sector for a twenty-year period, this paper finds considerable variation in the poverty-reducing effectiveness of growth-across sectors, across space, and over time. Growth in the services sector was substantially more poverty-reducing than was growth in either agriculture or industry. Growth in industry had very different effects on poverty across different states and its impact varied with initial conditions related to human development and worker empowerment. The determinants of poverty reduction changed around 1994: positive growth rates and a greater (absolute) elasticity with respect to agricultural growth contributed to faster poverty reduction. But because there was so little of it, economic growth played a relatively small role in accounting for Brazil's poverty reduction between 1985 and 2004. The taming of hyperinflation (in 1994) and substantial expansions in social security and social assistance transfers, beginning in 1988, accounted for a larger share of the overall reduction in poverty.

Agricultural Growth --- Economic Growth --- Human Capital --- Human Development --- Inequality --- Poor --- Poverty Dynamics --- Poverty Reduction --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Social Assistance --- Social Security

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Using nationally representative, economywide data, this paper investigates the relative importance of trade-mandated effects on industry wage premia; industry and economywide skill premia; and employment flows in accounting for changes in the wage distribution in Brazil during the 1988-95 trade liberalization. Unlike in other Latin American countries, trade liberalization appears to have made a significant contribution toward a reduction in wage inequality. These effects have not occurred through changes in industry-specific (wage or skill) premia. Instead, they appear to have been channeled through substantial employment flows across sectors and formality categories. Changes in the economywide skill premium are also important.

Agriculture --- Debt Markets --- Development --- Distribution --- Economic Theory and Research --- Economy --- Emerging Markets --- Exchange --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Free Trade --- Goods --- Growth Rate --- Income --- Industry --- Inequality Measures --- International Economics & Trade --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Law and Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Per Capita Incomes --- Prices --- Private Sector Development --- Public Sector Development --- Social Protections and Labor --- Theory --- Total Factor Productivity --- Total Factor Productivity Growth --- Trade --- Trade Law --- Trade Liberalization --- Trade Policy --- Trade Reforms --- Trends --- Value --- Wages --- Water and Industry --- Water Resources