Lee J. Alston, M. Melo, B. Mueller, C. Pereira: "Changing Social Contracts: Beliefs and Dissipative Inclusion in Brazil"

Eu conhecia uma versão anterior do artigo e agora saiu como paper do NBER. Vale muito a pena ler:

Social contracts about inequality and redistribution are country-specific. We rely on a model of inequality and redistribution where multiple steady states can emerge in given country. We link the model to the recent literature on beliefs and argue that beliefs are a major determinant of which equilibrium results. We show that changes in beliefs may shift the equilibrium in a country over time. We present evidence that beliefs are typically very stable over time, yet argue that Brazil has recently undergone a dramatic shift in beliefs which we show is associated with a change in the country's social contract in the past thirty years. The transition from one social contract to another has taken place through a process which we call 'dissipative inclusion', where redistribution and social inclusion are effectively achieved but accompanied by distortions, inefficiencies and rent dissipation.

(Eu continuo devendo a leitura do outro texto recente de Alston, Mueller e Harris no último Journal of Economic History.)