Replication data for: Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?

We establish that season of birth is related to educational attainment because of school start age policy and compulsory school attendance laws. Individuals born in the beginning of the year start school at an older age, and can therefore drop out after completing less schooling than individuals born near the end of the year. Roughly 25 percent of potential dropouts remain in school because of compulsory schooling laws. We estimate the impact of compulsory schooling on earnings by using quarter of birth as an instrument for education. The instrumental variables estimate of the return to education is close to the ordinary least squares estimate, suggesting that there is little bias in conventional estimates.

我们通过研究证实，受入学年龄政策与义务教育法规的影响，出生季节与个体受教育程度存在显著关联。年初出生的个体入学年龄更大，因此可比年末出生的个体更早辍学，其完成的学业年限更短。约25%的潜在辍学者因义务教育法规的约束而继续留校完成学业。我们以出生季度作为受教育程度的工具变量 (instrumental variables)，估算义务教育对个体收入的影响。教育回报率的工具变量估计结果与普通最小二乘 (ordinary least squares) 估计结果较为接近，这表明传统的估计结果几乎不存在偏误。