Using the tools of Welfare Economics, the study estimates states' weights in the social welfare function of contemporary Brazil. Based on PNAD 2009 microdata, two methods of calculating the weights were applied: the Equally Distributed Equivalent Income (EDEI) and the average marginal utilities...

Milanovic, Lindert and Williamson (2007) introduced the concept of the inequality possibility frontier. Their starting point is that very poor societies will never display high Gini indexes of personal distribution of income because there is very little surplus to be appropriated by the upper...

The paper examines the evolution of the thesis which states that the type of colonization determines, or conditions, the future of societies. Adam Smith already presented this proposition and a typology of colonies. However, it were the German authors Heeren and Roscher, in the 19th century, who...

This paper distinguishes how the source of lending affects gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Brazilian municipalities between 2007 and 2016. A unique data set allows us to discriminate between the effects of lending operated by either private or public commercial banks, and loans...