Regional Differences in Returns to Education in Portugal
This paper analyses differences in the return to education in Portugal across regions. For this purpose, we use an extended Mincer-type wage equation. OLS regression results indicate that differences in the rewards to education are substantially different across regions. In particular, they are much higher in Lisbon than in other regions. Since the average level of education in Lisbon is much higher in Lisbon than elsewhere such a differential is attributed to the fact that the demand for educated labour is much higher in Lisbon, likely due to differences in technology. A quantile regression analysis reveals that the return to education is not constant across the whole conditional wage distribution. This is valid for the 18 regions examined, although once again the impact of education on wages is higher in Lisbon regardless the quantile we examine.