Models designed to estimate the elasticity of poverty reduction must incorporate income inequality as an explanatory variable to prevent changes in income distribution being subsumed into growth elasticity. Similar results were found in Brazil by Barros, Henriques and Mendonga (2001). These authors emphasized that inequality in income distribution was responsible for economic growth being less efficient than it might be for poverty reduction purposes. In other words, the effect of growth on poverty reduction was smaller in Brazil than in other countries with the same income level.