ABSTRACT
Long one of the most unequal countries in the world, Brazil made remarkable progress in reducing inequality in the two decades from the mid-1990s to the onset of the great recession of 2014–2017. This chapter reviews the origins of Brazil’s inequality and the proximate causes for its decline – labor market dynamics, investments in education that led to a decline in the skills premium, and cash transfers and noncontributory benefits that raised the incomes of the poor. It explains the adoption of redistributive educational and social welfare policies by programmatic parties as a strategic option to cultivate a voting base among the urban informal and rural poor and to disadvantage their patronage opponents by removing discretion from and enacting rules for the distribution of social assistance and services.
