The Myth of Post-Reform Income Stagnation: Evidence from Brazil and Mexico

Irineu de Carvalho Filho and Marcos Chamon ()

No 2008/197, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Economic policies are often judged by a handful of statistics, some of which may be biased during periods of change. We estimate the income growth implied by the evolution of food demand and durable good ownership in post-reform Brazil and Mexico, and find that changes in consumption patterns are inconsistent with official estimates of near stagnant incomes. That is attributed to biases in the price deflator. The estimated unmeasured income gains are higher for poorer households, implying marked reductions in "real" inequality. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom that post-reform income growth was low and did not benefit the poor.

Keywords: WP; durable goods; price index; minimum wage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52
Date: 2008-08-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=22241 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The myth of post-reform income stagnation: Evidence from Brazil and Mexico (2012)
Working Paper: The myth of post-reform income stagnation: Evidence from Brazil and Mexico (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2008/197

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().