Cash-on-Hand and College Enrollment: Evidence from Population Tax Data and the Earned Income Tax Credit

Dayanand Manoli and Nick Turner

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2018, vol. 10, issue 2, 242-71

Abstract: We estimate causal effects of cash-on-hand on college enrollment decisions of students from low-income families. Using population-level, administrative data from US income tax returns, we exploit variation in tax refunds received in the spring of the high school senior year. The variation in tax refunds results from the kink point between the phase-in and maximum credit portions of the Earned Income Tax Credit schedule. The results suggest tax refunds received in the spring of the high school senior year have meaningful effects on college enrollment.

JEL-codes: D14 H24 I22 I23 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.20160298
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (57)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20160298 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... 1LBEPBJcG4wS-ApF6Wei (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... fZ3z869_8SFipa_JRZzm (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:10:y:2018:i:2:p:242-71

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy is currently edited by Matthew Shapiro

More articles in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().