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The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic relationship between policies related to educational provision and both educational participation and occupational outcomes in Brazil, using PNAD and RAIS-Migra data.

Outcomes are examined using: static multinomial logit analysis, and structural dynamic discrete choice modelling. The latter approach, coupled with the quality of the RAIS-Migra data source, allows the authors to evaluate the education policy impacts over time.

The main results show that the education level raises the propensity that the individual will be in formal sector work or still in education, and reduces the probability of the other outcomes. Transition into non-manual formal sector work following education may, however, occur via a spell of manual work.

This is the first study of occupational destination to be conducted in a rapidly developing country using high-quality panel data and appropriate dynamic methods, and as such makes an important contribution in confirming that increased supply of highly skilled workers enhances occupational attainment in this context.

The paper aims to focus the attention on a particular segment of the labor market – informal workers. Despite a large literature on migration, interesting and relevant questions remain to be studied. The paper investigates whether informal workers could be compared to political refugees in terms of their performance in the source and in the destination economies. The paper estimates the effects of wage differentials, education and other personal and labor market controls on the probability of migration.

The paper studies empirically the probability of migration of workers engaged in informal activities in Brazil using a binary choice model (probit) with particular attention to the self-selection problem of migrants. The paper uses data from the Informal Urban Economy Survey (IBGE).

The results show that the probability of migration of informal workers is negatively related to a worker's education level. The paper finds that the probability of migration is increasing in the ability bias and in wage differentials. The results bring new evidence regarding the possibility of negative selection of migrants considering their observable characteristics, while it corroborates a positive selection of ability or unobservable characteristics of informal worker migrants. The paper presents evidence that less-educated workers are more likely to migrate and show that informal workers migrants behave as economic refugees.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to study the migration of workers engaged in informal activities.