Home broadband and human capital formation

Arbeitspapier

This paper estimates the effect of home high-speed internet on national test scores of students at age 14. We combine comprehensive information on the telecom network, administrative student records, house prices and local amenities in England in a fuzzy spatial regression discontinuity design across invisible telephone exchange catchment areas. Using this strategy, we find that increasing broadband speed by 1 Mbit/s increases test scores by 1.37 percentile ranks in the years 2005-2008. This effect is sizeable, equivalent to 5% of a standard deviation in the national score distribution, and not driven by other technological mediating factors or school characteristics.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 923

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Analysis of Education ; Education: Government Policy ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
• Subject: Broadband ; Education ; Student Performance ; Spatial Regression Discontinuity

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Sanchis-Guarner, Rosa ; Montalbán, José ; Weinhardt, Felix
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance
• (where): London
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/247192
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET