There are important limitations to what education can do to reduce inequality and poverty within a reasonable time frame. Education is a long term investment and it takes half a century to qualify the entire labor force. Primary and secondary education have small effects on inequality, even in a highly optimistic scenario.
Marcelo Medeiros (Ph.D., University of Brasilia). Professor at the University of Brasilia and Senior Researcher at the Brazilian Institute for Applied Economic Research. His research focuses on social inequalities. Medeiros has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous books, book chapters and peer-reviewed articles in the areas of social inequality and mobility, demography, health, education, poverty, development theory, and disability and social protection. Medeiros received the Fred L. Soper Award from the World Health Organization for the best study in public health of 2012, the Prize of the National Treasure for Public Sector Economics 2012 (3rd place), the Brazilian Social Sciences Association prize for the best Ph.D. Thesis in 2003, and a Senate Medal for development research in 2000. He has taught short courses as a visiting professor at the National University of General San Martín (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires and has been a visiting scholar at Yale Law School, University of California-Berkeley, and Centre de Recherche Medecine, Sciences, Sante et Societe (CERMES). He has served as a policy expert at the Brazilian Audit Court – TCU Brasilia and as an adviser for the Brazilian National Science Council. He is also a member of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, the International Sociological Association, and the Brazilian Sociological Society.
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