1 Income and Educational Inequalities in Vale do Jequitinhonha, Brazil

This paper confirms the hypothesis that besides the huge educational inequalities among Minas Gerais State poor and rich regions, they also exist within poor regions such as Vale do Jequitinhonha. It also calculates an Educational Gini Index (EGI) for Jequitinhonha Region. Some regressions are estimated between the EGI and per-capita industrial, agricultural and service GDP. The Kuznets inverted U-hypothesis is also tested, disaggregating the economic sectors. Although Minas Gerais is the third Brazilian state in terms of development, the educational indicators are very low in Vale do Jequitinhonha Region. Public policies should estimulate investments in the industry and services sector to decrease this region dependence on agriculture and to get positive side effects on its income distribution. Higher agricultural growth is related to higher educational and income inequalities in Vale do Jequitinhonha. On the other hand, higher industrial growth is related to lower educational and income inequalities