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Are There Civic Returns to Education?

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Author Info
Thomas S. Dee
Abstract

The hypothesized effects of educational attainment on adult civic engagement and attitudes provide some of the most important justifications for government intervention in the market for education. In this study, I present evidence on whether these externalities exist. I assess and implement two strategies for identifying the effects of educational attainment. One is based on the availability of junior and community colleges; the other, on changes in teen exposure to child labor laws. The results suggest that educational attainment has large and statistically significant effects on subsequent voter participation and support for free speech. I also find that additional schooling appears to increase the quality of civic knowledge as measured by the frequency of newspaper readership

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9588.

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Date of creation: Mar 2003
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9588

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I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Lance Lochner & Enrico Moretti, 2001. "The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports," NBER Working Papers 8605, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Lang, Kevin & Kropp, David, 1986. "Human Capital versus Sorting: The Effects of Compulsory Attendance Laws," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 609-24, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2002. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-in-Differences Estimates?," NBER Working Papers 8841, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-75, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Thomas J. Kane & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 1999. "The Community College: Educating Students at the Margin between College and Work," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 63-84, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Card, David, 1999. "The causal effect of education on earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 30, pages 1801-1863 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. James M. Poterba, 1995. "Government Intervention in the Markets for Education and Health Care: How and Why?," NBER Working Papers 4916, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1992. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Public Schools in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-40, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Lori L. Taylor, 1999. "Government's role in primary and secondary education," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q I, pages 15-24. [Downloadable!]
  10. Gibson, John, 2001. "Unobservable family effects and the apparent external benefits of education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 225-233, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2002. "An Evaluation of Instrumental Variable Strategies for Estimating the Effects of Catholic Schools," NBER Working Papers 9358, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Kane, Thomas J & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 1995. "Labor-Market Returns to Two- and Four-Year College," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 600-614, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. David Card, 1993. "Using Geographic Variation in College Proximity to Estimate the Return to Schooling," NBER Working Papers 4483, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. John R. Lott & Jr., 1999. "Public Schooling, Indoctrination, and Totalitarianism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages S127-29, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Janet Currie & Enrico Moretti, 2002. "Mother's Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from College Openings and Longitudinal Data," NBER Working Papers 9360, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Kevin Milligan & Enrico Moretti & Philip Oreopoulos, 2003. "Does Education Improve Citizenship? Evidence from the U.S. and the U.K," NBER Working Papers 9584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 1995. "Democratization or Diversion? The Effect of Community Colleges on Educational Attainment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(2), pages 217-24, April.
  18. Claudia Goldin, 2001. "The Human Capital Century and American Leadership: Virtues of the Past," NBER Working Papers 8239, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Lott, John R, Jr, 1990. "An Explanation for Public Provision of Schooling: The Importance of Indoctrination," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 199-231, April.
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Christian Jaag, 2005. "Hidden Teacher Effort in Educational Production: Monitoring vs. Merit Pay," HEW 0503003, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  2. David Dreyer Lassen, 2004. "The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," EPRU Working Paper Series 04-03, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Michael J. Rizzo, 2005. "The public interest in higher education," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 19-45. [Downloadable!]
  4. Pischke, Jörn-Steffen, 2003. "The Impact of Length of the School Year on Student Performance and Earnings: Evidence from the German Short School Years," CEPR Discussion Papers 4074, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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