Returns and intergenerational mobility of education during period of falling earnings inequality in Brazil

Education related changes are often argued as the main reasons for changes in earnings distribuctions. However, omitted variable and measurement error biases possibly affect econometric estimates of these effects. Brazil experienced a sharp fall of individual labour income inequality betwenn 1996 and 2014. Coincidently, there are special supplements of PNAD on family background in these two years that allow us to better address the role played by falling education returns. This note takes advantage of this information to provide new estimates of the level and evolution of the returns to education in Brazil using variable premiums by education level, quantile regressions and pseudo panels.