This paper investigates the evolution of total factor productivity (TFP) for the Brazilian economy between 1992 and 2007, using a measure of human capital based on microeconomic data. One of the main contributions of this paper is to construct a specific measure of human capital that allows one to quantify both the evolution of the participation of the different levels of education and experience of the labor force in total hours worked and the variation of its productivity over time. The results show that TFP increased only 11.3% between 1992 and 2007 and accounted for about 22.9% of the growth rate of GDP in the period. Another important result is that the human capital of the labor force in Brazil was almost stationary during the period. This was due to the fact that the increase in the participation component of the labor force was compensated by the reduction in the productivity component. Finally, it is shown that the increase in the supply of more educated workers explains the decline in human capital compensation. In particular, the lack of a better educated labor force does not appear to have imposed a restriction to economic growth, since its supply increased faster than the demand.
