A relação entre a política reducionista do IPI e o acesso a bens: uma análise para domicílios de 2002 a 2009

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect that a reduction policy on Industrialized Products Tax (IPI) rates has on access (possession) to household goods, white goods and automobiles, mainly with regard to those who have less income level. A continuous differencein-differences methodology is used for the main specification, with the treatment group consisting of three goods (car, washing machine and refrigerator) and the control group consisting of six goods (DVD, microcomputer, motorcycle, radio, landline telephone and television). Data for ownership of assets and characteristics of households and head of family come from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD, IBGE) and data for IPI rates relating to each of the assets can be extracted from legislative decrees, thus as well as the Tax Incidence Tables on Industrialized Products (TIPI'S). To ensure the consistency of the results, other regressions are carried out using the traditional difference-in-differences method for a binary treatment variable (dummy). The results indicate that there is a considerable relationship between the decrease in IPI rates and the increase in ownership of the treated goods. Considering the main specification of the study, it can be stated that a reduction of 1 percentage point (pp) in the IPI rate increases the probability of increasing the ownership of treated goods by 0.43 pp when compared to goods in the control group, that is, those that do not were affected by the IPI reduction policy. Other results obtained have even greater weight when the sample is divided into quintiles. Households in the 1st income quintile, that is, with the lowest per capita household income, are those most likely to increase their ownership of white goods and automobiles (treated goods considered at work) given a reduction in IPI rates of these respective assets. Therefore, the reductionist IPI policy may favor an increase in the probability of access to goods that are affected by it, especially in relation to households with a lower level of income.