Replication data for \"Does Schooling Increase Political Belief Accuracy?\"

We theorize that, abstracting from one's background, schooling \textit{per se} does not trigger the epistemological sophistication that is necessary to get a grasp of the political world. In this paper, we study whether schooling improves the accuracy of factual beliefs about the share of foreigners and unemployed, later in life. We derive an appealing metric of belief accuracy, matching survey respondents' beliefs with the corresponding real-world datum at the time of the interview in their country, retrieving high levels of inaccuracy in both issues. More educated individuals display higher belief accuracy, most likely due to selection, rather than causality: compelling otherwise-dropouts to stay in school by extending compulsory education does not entails entail a significant effect on belief accuracy, in both issues. Taken together, cross-sectional and causal estimates suggest that education should not be conceived in isolation from the social structure it is embedded in. Loosely put, education is necessary, but not sufficient, to contrast inaccurate beliefs.