Nation-Building Through Compulsory Schooling During the Age of Mass Migration

Oriana Bandiera, Myra Mohnen, Imran Rasul and Martina Viarengo

STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series from Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE

Abstract: By the mid-19th century, America was the best educated nation on Earth: significant financial investments in education were being undertaken and the majority of children voluntarily attended public schools. So why did US states start introducing compulsory schooling laws at this point in time? We provide qualitative and quantitative evidence that compulsory schooling laws were used as a nation-building tool to homogenize the civic values held by the tens of millions of culturally diverse migrants who moved to America during the 'Age of Mass Migration'. Our central finding is that the adoption of compulsory schooling by American-born median voters occurs significantly earlier in time in states that host many migrants who had lower exposure to civic values in their home countries and had lower demand for common schooling when in the US. By providing micro-foundations for such laws, our study highlights an important link between mass migration and institutional change, where changes are driven by the policy choices of native median-voters in the receiving country rather than migrant settlers themselves

JEL-codes: D02 F22 I28 O15 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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Journal Article: Nation-building Through Compulsory Schooling during the Age of Mass Migration (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:stieop:057

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