| Hello, *|NOME|* One of the most controversial topics in the public and academic debate of recent decades is that of affirmative action in higher education, implemented through bonuses in entrance exams or by reservation of places – the so-called "quotas". Among the difficulties of the theme, its intrinsic normative complexity stands out. It seems clear, in this sense, that there are many possible answers to the question, "What do we want to achieve with affirmative action?" One of the answers emphasizes the role of affirmative action as access policies, which aim to increase the admission of groups considered as underrepresented in the student body of universities. However, it is also possible to consider its potential role in increasing the allocative efficiency of human development opportunities by accepting students who, although they scored lower on entrance exams, would have a relatively higher return in higher education. There is also the possibility of considering affirmative action as instruments of redistribution, which would induce changes in the aggregate future income of those who enter and those who fail to enter higher education. In addition, there is also the possibility of focusing on the very long term, which would lead us to judge affirmative action by its ability to increase intergenerational social mobility. The document Affirmative Actions in Higher Education: Literature Review, launched by IMDS at the request of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), intends to shed light on the subject by critically visiting the scientific literature that focuses on the causal impacts of affirmative action in Brazil and other regions of the world. The document is divided into sections that describe the best evidence on the impacts of affirmative action in higher education, considering the logical chain of effects of policies of this type, and presents the already substantial literature on the effects of the Quota Law itself (Law No. 12,711/2012). Firstly, the effects on access to higher education institutions are considered. In the light of the literature, it seems indisputable that affirmative action has been responsible, in recent years, for substantial changes in the socioeconomic and racial profile of higher education students, particularly in the most selective courses. As these policies alter the probabilities of entry into higher education, the document also considers evidence about potentially adverse margins of adjustment of students to these changes during basic schooling, such as the strategic shift to public schools to satisfy the beneficiary criterion. Next, attention turns to the effects on educational trajectories and, subsequently, on the labor market. Central to the literature on the subject is the mismatch hypothesis, according to which such policies would place individuals in academic situations in higher education for which they would be ill-prepared, leading them to a lower probability of graduating and to a worse trajectory in the labor market. The document describes the main empirical results of the literature on this hypothesis, with emphasis on research on the experiences of Brazilian universities in the 2000s, before the Quota Law, and after its implementation throughout the 2010s. The existing evidence on the subject provides little support for the existence of a systematic mismatch in Brazilian federal universities after the implementation of the Quota Law, although there is evidence that would be consistent with the phenomenon in the cases of the Federal University of Bahia and in the case of the University of Brasília, which instituted affirmative action programs well before the federal law was enacted. In general, the literature tends to emphasize that the conclusions will depend on the context of implementation and the design of the policy. A relevant question, and relatively less emphasized by the literature, is which design traits would be most relevant to minimize the potential effects of mismatch. It is also less clear, in part because of difficulties in analyzing the long-term effects of relatively new policies, what the consequences of affirmative action are for intergenerational mobility. In parallel with the efforts to draft the document, descriptions about the effects of affirmative action were inserted in the Impact Monitor, thus collecting details about the design and impacts, focusing on the margins described above [see here]. IMDS also held in November 2022 a seminar on the subject, also as part of the partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank. There are, however, limits to the type of lesson that can be drawn from comparing impact assessments. An alternative that can provide important subsidies for decision makers in the design of an affirmative action program is the use of structural models of computable general equilibrium, in which the results of a variety of possible alternative rules (mainly target audience and rules of access to vacancies) are simulated and compared. What would be, for example, the consequences of reducing the income criterion, which today is 1.5 minimum wages per capita - a condition in which, between 2012 and 2016, more than 90% of those enrolled in ENEM fit? Thinking about this and other issues relevant to increasing the effectiveness of Law No. 12,711/2012, IMDS will conduct a simulation study based on a general equilibrium model developed by researcher Luiz Brotherhood and co-authors – and presented in the article awarded the IMDS-BID-SBE Prize –, which will allow to characterize the effects of different parameters of the current design.
We hope that these institutional efforts can contribute to gather subsidies that allow us to think about the impacts of affirmative action, providing a more complete picture for civil society and indicating fruitful paths of research and reflection on its monitoring. Until the next "Letter from IMDS"! Paulo Tafner CEO |
