Sources of Welfare Disparities Across and Within Regions of Brazil : Evidence from the 2002-03 Household Budget Survey

Brazil's inequalities in welfare
and poverty across and within regions can be accounted for
by differences in household attributes and returns to those
attributes. This paper uses Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions at
the mean as well as at different quantiles of welfare
distributions on regionally representative household survey
data (2002-03 Household Budget Survey). The analysis finds
that household attributes account for most of the welfare
differences between urban and rural areas within regions.
However, comparing the lagging Northeast region with the
leading Southeast region, differences in returns to
attributes account for a large part of the welfare
disparities, in particular in metropolitan areas, supporting
the presence of agglomeration effects in booming areas.