Overall increases in the return to human capital assets like education and experience have increased inequality in the last 20-30 years in a number of developing countries in East Asia and Latin America.11 In some cases, expansions in education can actually lead to increases in inequality in the context of increasing returns to schooling. The increase in returns to education is more important than many other factors in accounting for the rise in inequality in a number of countries over the 1980s and 1990s (Bourguignon, Ferreira and Lustig, 2005). Conversely, a fall in the returns to tertiary education may also help explain falling inequality. Figure 4.10 Panel A shows how between 2001 and 2006 in Brazil, wages did not rise as much for the more educated as they would have done if returns to education had not fallen.