Human Development and Regional Inequalities: Spatial Analysis Across Brazilian Municipalities

144 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003.This dissertation draws three main conclusions concerning the relationship between human development and public intervention. First, the tendency to allow an uncontrolled decentralization process, common in many developing countries, may need to be replaced with some coordination mechanisms. Second, if there is a willingness to implement 'pro-equality' policies, social policies should be spatially focused, instead of being applied universally across all municipalities. Third, a few spatial strategies are proposed as alternatives to implement 'pro-equality' policies. These strategies are based on the existence of spatial diffusion processes that take place in the study areas.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD