O debate sobre distribuição de renda durante a década de 1970: a dinâmica da produção do conhecimento em economia no Brasil

Abstract

This dissertation aims to reexamine the debate on income distribution triggered in Brazil after the 1970 Census was released. Our central hypothesis is that the debate on income distribution, beyond the interpretation of the 1970 Census data, allows us to capture the dynamics of the professionalization of economists in Brazil, their relations with power and the creation of institutional spaces for the production and diffusion of economic knowledge marked by a conflicting and plural character in the management of economic knowledge. It seeks to articulate the conflictive character of the debate, taking into account the networks formed among economists, as well as their respective arguments that were raised in academic articles and in the written press. In this sense, we observe that the authors' trajectory, the institutions through which they passed and their theoretical matrices as essential elements to situate their positions within the debate. More specifically, we have identified a central division between the authors into which subdivisions fit. On the one hand were the economists who were theoretically or institutionally in government as Carlos Geraldo Langoni. On the other hand, a broad group of economists, of different theoretical and institutional hues, but unified by the critical position on the other side. The authors of this group are: Albert Fishlow, Maria da Conceição Tavares, Jose Serra, Edmar Lisboa Bacha, Luiz Gonzaga Belluzzo, Paul Singer, Pedro Mala, John Wells and Rodolfo Hoffmann. From this division and from the investigation of the relations between the theoretical positions and the authors' institutional affiliations, we investigated the arguments mobilized to face the debate about income distribution.