Rentiers and distributive conflict in Brazil (2000–2019)

Abstract

The paper examines the determinants of rentier income in contemporary financialised capitalist economies by analysing the case of Brazil. It argues that different drivers of rentier income may have comparable potential to channel a substantial share of aggregate income to asset owners. The paper estimates an expanded functional income distribution for Brazil for the period between 2000 and 2019, which distinguishes between rentier income, wages, profits of enterprise and government income. In the last two decades, the share of rentier income in Brazilian GDP has fluctuated around an approximately stable trend even though its composition has changed profoundly. The estimation presented allows for an analysis of the role played by financial expropriation (i.e. interest payments out of wage income) in this expanded functional income distribution, which points to alternative results concerning the recent trajectory of the wage share of income and of the distributive conflict.