Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/229179 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
BERG Working Paper Series No. 167
Publisher: 
Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group (BERG), Bamberg
Abstract: 
A substantial number of studies suggests a strong relationship between education and aspects of political participation and interest. Only a small body of literature, however, addresses whether these patterns represent causal effects. We add to this research and re-examine the question in the German context. For identification, we exploit an exogenous increase in lower secondary compulsory schooling between 1949 and 1969 in former West Germany, and use data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) to identify individuals' educational biographies more precisely than prior research. Our results reinforce findings from Siedler (2010): multiple regression analyses first indicate a positive, statistically significant correlation between schooling and our measures of political activities. IV estimates, however, are all trivial, for both compliers and the full sample, indicating that the reform did not stimulate longterm changes in political participation and interest.
Subjects: 
school reform
political participation
IV estimation
returns to education
Germany
JEL: 
I2
H4
H23
ISBN: 
978-3-943153-88-0
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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