Movilidad de ingreso y trampas de pobreza : nueva evidencia para los países del Cono Sur

Abstract

This paper tests the existence of poverty traps in three Southern Cone countries: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. We apply the methodology developed by Antman and McKenzie (2005): based on pseudopanels, we model the income dynamics of households and analyze the existence of heterogeneity in their path and their reactions to recessions. We also focus in income trajectories for different educational levels, and estimate the rate at which households overcome poverty situations or return to their equilibrium income level after a shock. The record of high volatility and strong macroeconomic crisis shared by Argentina, Uruguay and to a lesser extent Brazil, are an opportunity to carry out this type of analysis, which in turn is justified as a contribution to the design of public policies. This papers aims at identifying situations where the future trajectory of households’ income will be systematically below a certain threshold, as a result of past performance. General estimates do not confirm the presence of poverty traps in these three countries during the study period. However, when educational levels are taken into account, poverty traps are found in the cases of Brazil and Uruguay for households whose head belongs to low educational levels.poverty tramps, income mobility, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil