Higher education and affirmative action effects: evidence from an elite university in Brazil

• Grant number: 22/16306-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): May 01, 2023
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics
• Principal Investigator: Fernanda Gonçalves de La Fuente Estevan
• Grantee: Gabriel Guimarães Leite
• Host Institution: Escola de Economia de São Paulo (EESP). Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/10350-0 - Higher education and affirmative action effects: evidence from an elite university in Brazil, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

This project intends to 1) investigate the impact of public higher education selectivity on labor market outcomes of graduated students from different socioeconomic backgrounds; 2) evaluate the effect of affirmative action on future earnings of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of those policies and 3) analyze if the admission of targeted students increases the application of younger peers from the same high school in the following years. To achieve those goals, this project will use a unified dataset, which comprehends administrative data from UNICAMP between 1987 and 2020 and also formal labor market information from Relação Anual de Informações Sociais (RAIS) between 2002 and 2018. To estimate the returns to attending one of the most selective universities in Brazil in the labor market, we will use the regression discontinuity design method to circumvent biases from unobservable variables. This method exploits the identification of admitted and non-admitted candidates around admission cutoff grades before the introduction of affirmative action in the university (Paais and ProFIS). After the introduction of such policies, we intend to evaluate their effects on long-run returns between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries by diferences-in-differences models. Lastly, both methods will be used to investigate if the admission of targeted applicants increases the demand for the university spot among younger high school peers. Hence, this thesis project aims at testing the hypothesis that access to higher education selectivity increases individual earnings, especially those with less favorable socioeconomic backgrounds - that is, those individuals who comprehend the targeted groups of affirmative action policies. Besides, we aim to add evidence about a possible spillover of those policies in the Brazilian context.