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Does education foster trust? Evidence from compulsory schooling reform in the UK

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  • Yang, Songtao

Abstract

Although many studies document that education and trust are positively correlated, few studies examine whether this correlation represents a causal effect. This paper fills in the gap with data from the British Social Attitudes Survey. Firstly, using the OLS method, this paper finds that education and the three measures of trust—trust in people, trust in politicians, and trust in government—are all positively and significantly correlated. Secondly, to examine whether this correlation represents a causal effect, this paper exploits exogenous variation in educational attainment induced by the compulsory schooling reform in 1972. The regression discontinuity estimates suggest that the effects of education on the three measures of trust are all small and statistically insignificant. The findings imply that the OLS estimates may suffer from omitted variable bias and the effects of education on trust may be small.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang, Songtao, 2019. "Does education foster trust? Evidence from compulsory schooling reform in the UK," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 48-60.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:70:y:2019:i:c:p:48-60
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.03.007
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Sander Kunst & Theresa Kuhn & Herman G van de Werfhorst, 2020. "Does education decrease Euroscepticism? A regression discontinuity design using compulsory schooling reforms in four European countries," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(1), pages 24-42, March.
    2. Marcus Österman, 2021. "Can We Trust Education for Fostering Trust? Quasi-experimental Evidence on the Effect of Education and Tracking on Social Trust," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 211-233, February.
    3. Songtao Yang, 2022. "The effects of compulsory schooling reforms on women’s marriage outcomes—evidence from Britain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 1637-1662, September.
    4. Betul Akar & Pelin Akyol & Cagla Okten, 2022. "Education and Voluntary Work: Evidence from Turkish Time Use Survey," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 275-320, June.
    5. Chen, Jidong & Liu, Shenglong & Zhang, Xiaoming & Zhou, Xingyu, 2023. "Building social trust through education," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; Trust; RD Design; UK;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education

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