Applied Economics Lunch Seminar

Du 22/11/2022 de 12:30 à 13:30

Salle R1.15, Campus Jourdan

REUTZEL Fabian (PSE)

Internet Access and Educational Attainment: Evidence from India

Expansion of internet access to disadvantaged groups has been promoted in many developing countries to foster economic growth and equalize opportunities. While education is a key vehicle for economic mobility, evidence on the effects of internet access on educational opportunities remains scarce and inconclusive. Exploiting a massive shock to internet access across all of India and drawing on geocoded data, we investigate whether internet access has reshaped educational disparities. Exploiting both time and spatial variation by combining a DiD approach with a spatial RDD approach (Dell, 2010), we find significant negative effects for internet access on educational attainment which exhibit strong heterogeneity along multiple dimensions. Effects are larger for girls and negative effects are driven by more advantaged children, i.e. those of higher castes and whose parents have higher levels of education. On the other hand, we find positive effects for Muslims, a strongly disadvantaged group with little economic mobility (Asher et al., 2021). Results are confirmed when resorting to DiD approach with a restricted sample of individuals close to the internet coverage area’s border (Hjort and Poulsen, 2019) as well as by a district-level analysis using a DiD approach with continuous treatment (Callaway et al., 2021). Further, we exploit potential channels driving these results such as attitudes towards women, fertility and labor force participation.