Uma Decomposição da Desigualdade de Rendimentos do Trabalho no Brasil: 1984-2005

This study decomposes some labour earnings inequality measures for Brazil for the period 1984-2005. Through this decomposition we analyse the contributions of three components: a) quantity, which is associated with observable (productive) characteristics of workers; b) price, which measures the returns to those observable characteristics; and, c) residual, which captures the part attributable to nonobservable factors that affect workers` labour earnings. The results of this decomposition were obtained through a simple modification of the methodology proposed by Juhn, Murphy, and Pierce (1993). The aim of this modification is to allow a conterfactual-type interpretation of the effects of the mentioned components on the changes in labour earnings inequality. The data base we use is the National Household Survey that is available for the period of analysis. Our results show that the contribution of the non-observable component seems to be the most important when taking the period as a whole. However, for the more recent period (2001-2005) both the price and the non-observable components play the most important roles.