Resumo:
In recent decades, an increase in income and wealth inequality has been observed in several
countries. Besides compromising the well-being of individuals with lower incomes, increases
in income concentration weaken public institutions and democratic governance, compromising
a country’s economic performance. Motivated by the absence of consensus in the literature
regarding the impact of monetary policy on income inequality, this work estimates static and
dynamic panel models with data from several countries between 1990 and 2024, considering the
impact of monetary policy effectiveness on inequality. The results indicate that contractionary
monetary policies – characterized by the increase in interest rates – are associated with an
increase in income inequality. This result suggests that the increase in the cost of credit and
economic slowdown tend to disproportionately penalize the income and employment of the
poorest workers, while preserving or raising the yields of holders of savings and financial assets.
Onthe other hand, inflation volatility presented a negative correlation with inequality, suggesting
that price instability may reduce income concentration by eroding the real value of financial
assets held by the top of the distribution. The growth of money supply (M2) did not present
statistical significance, indicating net distributive neutrality of this aggregate. It is concluded
that, although macroeconomic stability is the priority of the monetary authority, fiscal policy
must act as a counterbalance mechanism to mitigate the distributive side effects of interest rates.
