The effect of college education on intolerance: evidence from Google search data

Jeff Chan

Applied Economics Letters, 2019, vol. 26, issue 2, 83-86

Abstract: This article explores the causal relationship between college education within a region and that region’s interest in hate-related topics. I utilize Google Trends search data for intolerance-related terms to measure regional interest in intolerance, and an instrumental variable based on the historical assignment of land grant colleges to obtain exogenous variation in cross-regional college-educated population shares. I find that there is a negative correlation between a region’s college-educated population share and that region’s search activity for intolerance-related terms. This correlation does not translate to a causal relationship, however, as the instrumental variables estimates are found to be small and statistically insignificant. This finding suggests that improving access to college-level education may not be an effective policy tool to combat hateful attitudes and behaviour.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2018.1438582

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