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: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 8846

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): Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/232443
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET