Distribution of income, technology and employment: An analysis of the industrial sectors of Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela

The increasingly popular strategy which postulates that a redistribution of income can automatically produce a higher level of employment and in turn, a better distribution of income, is discussed in this paper with special reference to the industrial sector. On the basis of data from Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela and utilizing a Leontieff type of model disaggregated by technological strata, the author concludes that the redistribution of income does not significantly affect employment in the industrial sector, since the two fundamental assumptions on which the positive results are expected are of doubtful validity. On one hand, the structure of consumption of industrial goods is inelastic to changes in income distribution and on the other, the production of wage goods does not necessarily imply the use of more labour intensive techniques.Given the need to improve the distribution of income, the author maintains that for such redistribution to be used to promote employment creation, special attention should be given to the direction of consumption of those benefited with the redistribution and to the channelling of the additional demand towards those establishments which use more labour intensive techniques.