Uma análise sobre a evolução temporal da posse dos bens que compõem o Indicador Econômico Nacional (IEN)

Abstract

Objectives: This study aims to analyze the temporal evolution of the households’ consumption profile in order to indicate which are the best goods and households’ characteristics to include in asset indexes, considering their stability and identifying those that rapidly lose importance. Methods: We analyzed the temporal evolution of the ownership of each one of the variables that compose the IEN, as well as the household’s scores, using descriptive statistics and graphic analysis. We also calculated the correlation coefficients of each component of the index with the household’s scores of IEN. We used data from the consortiums of research from 2002 to 2014, an inquiry realized every two year in Pelotas/RS, in the analysis. Results: We have found an increase in the schooling of the head of the family and in the ownership of all the assets analyzed, except radio and landline. We also observed that in general the Pearson’s correlation of the goods with the score of IEN tends to decrease over the year. The quintiles cut points showed a consistent increase, however, the distance between the points did not show an important variation. The ownership of all goods increased in the higher quintiles of IEN, with different grow tendencies, but very similar for a few groups of goods. Conclusion: We considered that the best goods to include in wealth indexes as IEN as those that are capable of distinguish the households according to its socioeconomic position and that have a high correlation with the index (or with income), without suffering much variation in this correlation over the years. This all taking into account that it is advisable not to include items with similar tendency of grow of the ownership through the quintiles. Besides, the reference cut points published with the IEN rapidly loose its functionality. Thus, it should be updated in every 1-2 years.