The role of education as an agent for income redistribution in developing countries is discussed. A study of Brazil, Peru, and Mexico indicates that education may not influence income distribution as much as government policies that differentially reward schooling level, work sectors, occupation types, and region of residence. (BC)

In the 1960s and 1970s, steady economic growth helped the Costa Rican government expand its education system rapidly. The 1979 oil shocks, the U.S. 1981-82 recession, and other factors ended this prosperity and exposed the fragility of Costa Rica's late 1970s debt-financed development. To restore economic growth, new economic policies were…