Kevin Denny will give a seminar at 11am on July 4th in the seminar room in the Geary Institute.
The curious effect of education on political behaviour
Kevin Denny, Orla Doyle
Abstract
There is a large literature in economics on the private benefits to individuals of education. It is widely believed that there are additional, social, benefits for example that more educated people display greater levels of civic behaviour. Evidence on this is rather thin. However it has long been known that voting and political interest generally is more common amongst the more educated. This paper questions whether this is a causal relationship. Using data for Ireland we exploit a natural experiment that exogenously changed education levels. This allows us to go beyond the simple correlation of education and voter turnout. It is shown that this has a dramatic effect on the estimated relationship between education and the decision to vote.
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