EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The conceptual evolution of inequality and poverty in economic thought

André Roncaglia de Carvalho () and Luciana Rosa de Souza ()

Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, 2021, vol. 41, issue 2, 402-425

Abstract: This is a historical reading of economic ideas about the problem of inequality and poverty. Based on the reflections of David Ricardo, the trajectory of economists’ concerns with the topic is explored, in an attempt to demarcate the phases in which the profession’s attention focused on one aspect of the problem of social justice, as well as its causes. and its effects on the behavior of individuals and the economy. In particular, attention is paid to the sensitivity of the research agenda to the various historical contexts, as well as to methodological and technological innovations. The research agenda is predominantly marked by a focus on functional income distribution until the 1980s, when poverty became the center of attention, motivating the development of methods of personal income distribution (size distribution). It offers a panoramic and non-linear reinterpretation of economic ideas about inequality and poverty, a theme that has been gaining increasing importance in the analytical developments of the economy in the last 15 years, in which the problem of concentration of wealth has gained more elaborate outlines, opening a new front of investigations on social justice and the role of public policy. JEL Classification: B11.

Keywords: Income and wealth inequality; poverty; social justice; history of economic thought (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org.br/repojs/ind ... ticle/view/2160/2215 (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:ekm:repojs:v:41:y:2021:i:2:p:402-425:id:2160

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Brazilian Journal of Political Economy from Center of Political Economy
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Brazilian Journal of Political Economy (Brazil) ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:ekm:repojs:v:41:y:2021:i:2:p:402-425:id:2160