Returns to experience across tasks: evidence from Brazil

Using a rich Brazilian panel dataset and an occupation-task mapping, we investigate whether returns to experience depend on the types of jobs performed by workers. We find that returns to experience in non-routine tasks, especially returns to analytical tasks, are much larger than returns to routine tasks. This gap increases with schooling, suggesting that schooling and nonroutine tasks are complementary in the human capital production function. These are important findings for developing countries similar to Brazil, where approximately 70% of workers’ tasks are routine