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4 Pages. Follow the Instructions Paper 1 Instructions (Your Name) Econ 2500W – Sec( ) Peer Reader: In “Paper 1” folder, please choose one of five papers posted on Huskyct, and summarize the main idea of the paper. Your analysis should cover as least the following: 1. What issue does the author try to address? What is the major finding of the paper? 2. What evidence has the author provided in order to support the finding? You will need to discuss data, model, methodology, and so forth. (Hint: How do you interpret the results in each figure and table?) 3. What are the basic assumptions? 4. Any weakness of the analysis? Is there anything that needs to improve in this paper? This paper is based on your own analysis, therefore should not involve any citation. Your paper should be written in New Times Roman, 12-point font, double spaced, and maximum four pages. Please also include the page number at the bottom of each page. Grading Rubric: 1. FIRST DRAFT (20%) 2. CLEAR THESIS: Identifies and addresses a clear central thesis, expressed early in the paper, either directly in a topic paragraph or indirectly through an appropriate rhetorical device (like an anecdote). Argument clearly expressed and sustained throughout paper. (15%) 3. DEPTH OF ARGUMENT: Body of paper supports central thesis; brings to bear appropriate and persuasive evidence. Conceptual sophistication and engagement with topic; recognition of limitations and counterarguments; thoughtfulness; originality of ideas; appropriate number of pages. Explicit use of economic theories, models, and data. (30%) 4. STRUCTURE OF PAPER: Presentation is well organized: clear topic sentences; good transition between ideas; all sections of paper tie together. (15%) 5. STYLE AND LANDUAGE: Style is direct, concise, and lively; avoids excessive and unexplained jargon and acronyms; refrains from clichés and bureaucratic formulations. Tone, terminology, and other language choices appropriate to professional economics, to intended audience, and to type of writing. (10%) 6. PRESENTATION: Grammar, mechanics, diction, spelling, punctuation, proofreading, and formatting. Consistent and appropriate verb tense; crisp pronoun and clause references; correct parallel structure. (10%) 2 Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings? Author(s): Joshua D. Angrist and Alan B. Krueger Source: The Quarterly Journal of Economics , Nov., 1991, Vol. 106, No. 4 (Nov., 1991), pp. 979-1014 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2937954 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Quarterly Journal of Economics This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS Vol. CVI November 1991 Issue 4 DOES COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE AFFECT SCHOOLING AND EARNINGS?* JOSHUA D. ANGRIST AND ALAN B. KRUEGER 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. Every developed country in the world has a compulsory schooling requirement, yet little is known about the effect these laws have on educational attainment and earnings.1 This paper exploits an unusual natural experiment to estimate the impact of compulsory schooling laws in the United States. The experiment stems from the fact that children born in different months of the year start school at different ages, while compulsory schooling laws generally require students to remain in school until their sixteenth or seventeenth birthday. In effect, the interaction of school-entry requirements and compulsory schooling laws compel students born *We thank Michael Boozer and Lisa Krueger for outstanding research assis- tance. Financial support was provided by the Princeton Industrial Relations Section, an NBER Olin Fellowship in Economics, and the National Science Foundation (SES-9012149). We are also grateful to Lawrence Katz, John Pencavel, an anonymous referee, and many seminar participants for helpful comments. The data and computer programs used in the preparation of this paper are available on request. 1. See OECD [1983] for a comparison of compulsory schooling laws in different countries. t 1991 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1991 This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 980 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS in certain months to attend school longer than students born in other months. Because one's birthday is unlikely to be correlated with personal attributes other than age at school entry, season of birth generates exogenous variation in education that can be used to estimate the impact of compulsory schooling on education and earnings. In the next section we present an analysis of data from three decennial Censuses that establishes that season of birth is indeed related to educational attainment. Remarkably, in virtually all of the birth cohorts that we have examined, children born in the first quarter of the year have a slightly lower average level of education than children born later in the year. School districts typically require a student to have turned age six by January 1 of the year in which he or she enters school (see HEW [1959] ). Therefore, students born earlier in the year enter school at an older age and attain the legal dropout age at an earlier point in their educational careers than students born later in the year. If the fraction of students who want to drop out prior to the legal dropout age is independent of season of birth, then the observed seasonal pattern in education is consistent with the view that compulsory schooling constrains some students born later in the year to stay in school longer. Two additional pieces of evidence link the seasonal pattern in education to the combined effect of age at school entry and compulsory schooling laws. First, the seasonal pattern in education is not evident in college graduation rates, nor is it evident in graduate school completion rates. Because compulsory schooling laws do not compel individuals to attend school beyond high school, this evidence supports our hypothesis that the relationship be- tween years of schooling and date of birth is entirely due to compulsory schooling laws. Second, in comparing enrollment rates of fifteen- and sixteen-year olds in states that have an age sixteen schooling requirement with enrollment rates in states that have an age seventeen schooling requirement, we find a greater decline in the enrollment of sixteen-year olds in states that permit sixteen- year olds to leave school than in states that compel sixteen-year olds to attend school. The variety of evidence presented in Section I establishes that compulsory schooling laws increase educational attainment for those covered by the laws. In Section II we consider whether students who attend school longer because of compulsory schooling receive higher earnings as a result of their increased schooling. This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE EFFECTS OF COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 981 Two-stage least squares (TSLS) estimates are used in which the source of identification is variation in education that results solely from differences in season of birth-which, in turn, results from the effect of compulsory schooling laws. The results suggest that men who are forced to attend school by compulsory schooling laws earn higher wages as a result of their increased schooling. The estimated monetary return to an additional year of schooling for those who are compelled to attend school by compulsory schooling laws is about 7.5 percent, which is hardly different from the ordinary-least-squares (OLS) estimate of the return to education for all male workers. To check further whether the estimated schooling-earnings relationship is truly a result of compulsory schooling, we explore the relationship between earnings and season of birth for the subsample of college graduates. Because these individuals were not constrained by compulsory schooling requirements, they form a natural control group to test whether season of birth affects earnings for reasons other than compulsory schooling. The results of this exploration suggest that there is no relationship between earnings and season of birth for men who are not constrained by compulsory schooling. This strengthens our interpretation that the TSLS estimate of the return to education reflects the effect of compulsory school attendance. Our findings have important implications for the literature on omitted variables bias in estimates of the return to education (see Griliches [1977] and Willis [1986] for surveys). Economists have devoted a great deal of attention to correcting for bias in the return to education due to omitted ability and other factors that are positively correlated with both education and earnings. This type of a bias would occur, for example, in Spence's [1973] signaling model, where workers with high innate ability are assumed to find school less difficult and to obtain more schooling to signal their high ability. In contrast to this prediction, estimates based on season of birth indicate that, if anything, conventional OLS estimates are biased slightly downward. I. SEASON OF BIRTH, COMPULSORY SCHOOLING, AND YEARS OF EDUCATION If the fraction of students who desire to leave school before they reach the legal dropout age is constant across birthdays, a student's birthday should be expected to influence his or her This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 982 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ultimate educational attainment.2 This relationship would be expected because, in the absence of rolling admissions to school, students born in different months of the year start school at different ages. This fact, in conjunction with compulsory schooling laws, which require students to attend school until they reach a specified birthday, produces a correlation between date of birth and years of schooling.3 Students who are born early in the calendar year are typically older when they enter school than children born late in the year. For example, our tabulation of the 1960 Census (the earliest census that contains quarter of birth), shows that, on average, boys born in the first quarter of the year enter first grade when they are 6.45 years old, whereas boys born in the fourth quarter of the year enter first grade when they are 6.07 years old.4 This pattern arises because most school districts do not admit students to first grade unless they will attain age six by January 1 of the academic year in which they enter school. Consequently, students who were born in the beginning of the year are older when they start school than students who were born near the end of the year. Because children born in the first quarter of the year enter school at an older age, they attain the legal dropout age after having attended school for a shorter period of time than those born near the end of the year. Hence, if a fixed fraction of students is constrained by the compulsory attendance law, those born in the beginning of the year will have less schooling, on average, than those born near the end of the year. Figures I, II, and III document the relationship between education and season of birth for men born 1930-1959. Each figure depicts the average years of completed schooling by quarter and 2. Beginning with Huntington [1938], researchers in many fields have investi- gated the effect of season of birth on a variety of biological and behavioral variables, ranging from fertility to schizophrenia. We consider the impact of other possible season of birth effects below. 3. Angrist and Krueger [1990] formally model the link between age at school entry and compulsory schooling. A testable implication of this model is that age at school entry should be linearly related to years of education. Data on men born 1946 to 1952 are generally consistent with this prediction. 4. Figures in the text are for boys born in 1952. The average entry age to first grade for those born in the second quarter is 6.28, and the average age of first graders born in the third quarter is 6.08. Other years show a similar pattern (see Angrist and Krueger [1990] ). These averages are affected by holding back or advancing students beyond the normal start age, and by differences in start age policy across schools. Nonetheless, the results show that students born in the beginning of the year tend to enter school at an older age than those born near the end of the year. This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 13.2 a, 13.0 0 LUJ ,o 12.8 - 2 E 30 32 34 36 38 40 Year of Birth FIGURE I Years of Education and Season of Birth 1980 Census Note. Quarter of birth is listed below each observation. 13.9 13 313 2 o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 0 . ~3.5) 2 0. o 40 42 234 CD 0 33, 40 42 44 46 48 50 Year of Birth FIGURE II Years of Education and Season of Birth 1980 Census Note. Quarter of birth is listed below each observation. This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 984 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 13.6 2312 0 -? 13.4 _ 1 34 L, 13.2 -24 . 13,0 -12 Q) E 12.8 -123 c0)0 C,, 12.6~~~~~~~~~2 12,4 4 12.2 3 l l l l l l l l l 14 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Year of Birth FIGURE III Years of Education and Season of Birth 1980 Census Note. Quarter of birth is listed below each observation. year of birth, based on the sample of men in the 1980 Census, 5 percent Public Use Sample. (The data set used in the figures is described in greater detail in Appendix 1.) The graphs show a generally increasing trend in average education for cohorts born in the 1930s and 1940s. For men born in the late 1950s, average education is trending down, in part because by 1980 the younger men in the cohort had not completed all of their schooling, and in part because college attendance fell in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. A close examination of the plots indicates that there is a small but persistent pattern in the average number of years of completed education by quarter of birth. Average education is generally higher for individuals born near the end of the year than for individuals born early in the year. Furthermore, men born in the fourth quarter of the year tend to have even more education than men born in the beginning of the following year. The third quarter births also often have a higher average number of years of education than the following year's first quarter births. Moreover, This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE EFFECTS OF COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 985 this seasonal pattern in years of education is exhibited by the cohorts of men that experienced a secular decline in educational levels, as well as by the cohorts that experienced a secular increase in educational levels. To further examine the seasonal pattern in education, it is useful to remove the trend in years of education across cohorts. A flexible way to detrend the series is by subtracting off a moving average of the surrounding birth cohort's average education. For each quarter we define a two-period, two-sided moving average, MA(+2,-2), as the average education of men born in the two preceding and two succeeding quarters.5 Specifically, for the cohort of men born in year c and quarterj, the MA(+ 2,- 2), denoted MAC,, is MAQ = (E 2+ E-1 + E+1 + E+2)/4, where Eq is the average years of education attained by the cohort born q quarters before or after cohort cj. The "detrended" education series is simply E, - MAcj. The relationship between season of birth and years of educa- tion for the detrended education series is depicted in Figure IV for each ten-year-age group. The figures clearly show that season of birth is related to years of completed education. For example, in 27 of the 29 birth years, the average education of men born in the first quarter of the year (January-March) is less than that predicted by the surrounding quarters based on the MA( + 2,- 2). To quantify the effect of season of birth on a variety of educational outcome variables, we estimated regressions of the form, 3 (ECJ-MACA)=a + Pi QICJ + CEj for iN , , N; c = ,... 10; j = 1, 2,3, where Eic, is the educational outcome variable for individual i in cohort c (i.e., years of education, graduated high school, graduated college, or years of post-high school education), MAC: is the MA(+2,-2) trend for the education variable, and QCJ is a dummy 5. We note that none of our conclusions is qualitatively changed when we use a linear age trend (with age measured to the quarter of the year), a quadratic age trend, or unrestricted year-of-birth dummies. This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 986 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 0.2 4 33 011 4 3 4 3 4 4 3 3 = 4 3 2324 34 2 4 0 2. 2 u 3 U-~~~ 40 42 24 46 82 0.2 1 5 30 32 34 36 38 c: 0.2 Q) ~~~~~4 U.- ~4 Oil~ ~~~Ya oof 2it ~~ OA 2 ~~34 2 2 34 3 3 7 2 34 42 u 4 00 0. i 2 22 ~ 40 42 44 46 48 0,2 0.1i 4 3 234 222 23 2 3 2 2 2 3443 23 3 3 4 4 -0.1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -0.21 50 52 54 56 58 Year of Birth FIGURE IV Season of Birth and Years of Schooling Deviations from MA (+ 2,- 2) This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE EFFECTS OF COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 987 TABLE I THE EFFECT OF QUARTER OF BIRTH ON VARIOUS EDUCATIONAL OUTCOME VARIABLES Quarter-of-birth effeCta Birth F-testb Outcome variable cohort Mean I II III [P-value] Total years of 1930-1939 12.79 -0.124 -0.086 -0.015 24.9 education (0.017) (0.017) (0.016) [0.0001] 1940-1949 13.56 -0.085 -0.035 -0.017 18.6 (0.012) (0.012) (0.011) [0.0001] High school graduate 1930-1939 0.77 -0.019 -0.020 -0.004 46.4 (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) [0.0001] 1940-1949 0.86 -0.015 -0.012 -0.002 54.4 (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) [0.0001] Years of educ. for high 1930-1939 13.99 -0.004 0.051 0.012 5.9 school graduates (0.014) (0.014) (0.014) [0.0006] 1940-1949 14.28 0.005 0.043 -0.003 7.8 (0.011) (0.011) (0.010) [0.0017] College graduate 1930-1939 0.24 -0.005 0.003 0.002 5.0 (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) [0.0021] 1940-1949 0.30 -0.003 0.004 0.000 5.0 (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) [0.00181 Completed master's 1930-1939 0.09 -0.001 0.002 -0.001 1.7 degree (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) [0.1599] 1940-1949 0.11 0.000 0.004 0.001 3.9 (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) [0.0091] Completed doctoral 1930-1939 0.03 0.002 0.003 0.000 2.9 degree (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) [0.0332] 1940-1949 0.04 -0.002 0.001 -0.001 4.3 (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) [0.0050] a. Standard errors are in parentheses. An MA(+2, -2) trend term was subtracted from each dependent variable. The data set contains men from the 1980 Census, 5 percent Public Use Sample. Sample size is 312,718 for 1930-1939 cohort and is 457,181 for 1940-1949 cohort. b. F-statistic is for a test of the hypothesis that the quarter-of-birth dummies jointly have no effect. variable indicating whether person i was born in the jth quarter of the year. Because the dependent variable in these regressions is purged of MA(+2,-2) effects, it is necessary to delete observations born in the first two quarters and last two quarters of the sample. Table I reports estimates of each quarter of birth (main) effect %) relative to the fourth quarter, for men in the 1980 Census who were born in the 1930s and 1940s.6 The F-tests reported in the last 6. We focus on men born in the 1930s and 1940s because many individuals in the 1950s birth cohorts had not yet completed their education by 1980. This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 988 Q UAR TERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS column of the table indicate that, after removing trend, the small within-year-of-birth differences in average years of education are highly statistically significant. For both cohorts the average num- ber of completed years of schooling is about one tenth of a year lower for men born in the first quarter of the year than for men born in the last quarter of the year. Similarly, the table shows that, for the 1930s cohort, men born in the first quarter of the year are 1.9 percentage points less likely to graduate from high school than men born in the last quarter of the year.7 For the 1940s cohort the gap in the high school graduation rate between first and fourth quarter births is 1.5 percentage points. Because the high school dropout rate is 23 percent for men born in the 1930s and 14 percent for men born in the 1940s, first quarter births are roughly 10 percent more likely to drop out of high school than fourth quarter births. The seasonal differences in years of education and in high school graduation rates are smaller for men born in the 1940s than for men born in the 1930s, but the quarter-of-birth effects are still statistically significant. As discussed below, one explanation for the attenuation of the seasonal pattern in education over time is that compulsory attendance laws are less likely to be a binding con- straint on more recent cohorts. The evidence that children born in the first quarter of the year tend to enter school at a slightly older age than other children, and that children born in the first quarter of the year also tend to obtain less education, is at least superficially consistent with the simple age at entry/compulsory schooling model. To further explore whether the differences in education by season of birth are caused by compulsory schooling laws, the bottom part of Table I estimates the same set of equations for measures of post-secondary educational achievement. This sample provides a test of whether season of birth influences education even for those who are not constrained by compulsory schooling laws (because compulsory schooling laws exempt students who have graduated from high school). Consequently, if compulsory school- ing is responsible for the seasonal pattern in education, one would not expect to find such a pattern for individuals who have some post-secondary education. The seasonal pattern in years of education is much less 7. Notice that because the quarter-of-birth dummies are mutually exclusive, the linear probability model is appropriate in this situation. This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THE EFFECTS OF COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE 989 pronounced and quite different for the subsample of individuals who have at least a high school education. In this sample, second quarter births tend to have higher average education, while those born in other quarters have about equal levels of education. The difference in average years of education between first and fourth quarter births is statistically insignificant for high school gradu- ates. On the other hand, first quarter births are slightly less likely to graduate from college, and the gap is statistically significant. In view of the enormous sample sizes (in excess of 300,000 observa- tions), however, the F-tests are close to classical critical values for the null hypothesis that season of birth is unrelated to post-high school educational outcomes. Table I also shows the effect of quarter of birth on the proportion of men who have a master's degree and on the proportion of men who have a doctoral degree.8 These results show no discernible pattern in educational achievement by season of birth. Because individuals with higher degrees did not discontinue their education as soon as they were legally permitted, these findings provide further support for the view that compulsory schooling is responsible for the seasonal pattern in education. Moreover, because season of birth is correlated with age at school entry, the lack of a seasonal pattern in postsecondary education suggests that differences in school entry age alone do not have a significant effect on educational attainment. In the absence of compulsory schooling, therefore, we would not expect to find differences in education by season of birth. A. Direct Evidence on the Effect of Compulsory Schooling Laws For the combined effects of compulsory schooling and school start age to adequately explain the seasonal pattern in education, it must be the case that compulsory attendance laws effectively force some students to stay in school longer than they desire. Table II provides evidence that compulsory schooling laws are effective in compelling a small proportion of students to remain in school until they attain the legal dropout age. This evidence makes use of the fact that some states allow students to drop out of school upon attaining their sixteenth birthday, while others compel students to 8. For purposes of Table I we assumed that individuals with a college degree completed sixteen or more years of education, individuals with a master's degree completed eighteen or more years of education, and individuals with a doctoral degree completed twenty or more years of education. This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 UTC������������ All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 990 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS TABLE II PERCENTAGE OF AGE GROUP ENROLLED IN SCHOOL BY BIRTHDAY AND LEGAL DROPOUT AGEa Type of state lawb School-leaving School-leaving age: 16 age: 17 or 18 Column Date of birth (1) (2) (1) - (2) Percent enrolled April 1, 1960 1. Jan 1-Mar 31, 1944 87.6 91.0 -3.4 (age 16) (0.6) (0.9) (1.1) 2. Apr 1-Dec31, 1944 92.1 91.6 0.5 (age 15) (0.3) (0.5) (0.6) 3. Within-state diff. -4.5 -0.6 -4.0 (row 1 - row 2) (0.7) (1.0) (1.2) Percent enrolled April 1, 1970 4. Jan 1-Mar 31, 1954 94.2 95.8 -1.6 (age 16) (0.3) (0.5) (0.6) 5. Apr 1-Dec31, 1954 96.1 95.7 0.4 (age 15) (0.1) (0.3) (0-3) 6. Within-state diff. -1.9 0.1 -2.0 (row 1 - row 2) (0.3) (0.6) (0.6) Percent enrolled April 1, 1980 7. Jan 1-Mar 31, 1964 95.0 96.2 -1.2 (age 16) (0.1) (0.2) (0.2) 8. Apr 1-Dec 31, 1964 97.0 97.7 -0.7 (age 15) (0.1) (0.1) (0.1) 9. Within-state diff. -2.0 -1.5 0.5 (row 1 - row 2) (0.1) (0.2) (0.3) a. Standard errors are in parentheses. b. Data set used to compute rows 1-3 is the 1960 Census, 1 percent Public Use Sample; data set used to compute rows 4-6 is 1970 Census, 1 percent State Public Use Sample (15 percent form); data set used to compute rows 7-9 is the 1980 Census, 5 percent Public Use Sample. Each sample contains both boys and girls. Sample sizes are 4,153 for row 1; 12,512 for row 2; 7,758 for row 4; 24,636 for row 5; 42,740 for row 7; and 131,020 for row 8. attend school until their seventeenth or eighteenth birthday.9 A summary of the compulsory schooling requirement in effect in each state in 1960, 1970, and 1980 is provided in Appendix 2. The first three rows of Table II focus on individuals who were 9. There are three exceptions: Mississippi and South Carolina eliminated their compulsory schooling laws in response to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. South Carolina reenacted compulsory schooling in 1967, and Mississippi in 1983. In 1960 Maine had an age fifteen compulsory schooling law. Ehrenberg and Marcus [1982] and Edwards [1978] also provide evidence on the impact of compulsory schooling legislation on school enrollment. This content downloaded from ������������132.174.250.220 on Tue, 07 Sep 2021 19:16:11 …