Who Needs a Fracking Education? The Educational Response to Low-Skill Biased Technological Change

Elizabeth Cascio and Ayushi Narayan

No 21359, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We explore the educational response to fracking, a recent technological breakthrough in the oil and gas industry, taking advantage of the timing of its diffusion and spatial variation in shale reserves. We show that fracking has significantly increased relative demand for less-educated male labor and high school dropout rates of male teens, both overall and relative to females. Our estimates imply that, absent fracking, the teen male dropout rate would have been 1 percentage point lower over 2011-15 in the average labor market with shale reserves, implying an elasticity of school enrollment with respect to earnings below historical estimates. Fracking increased earnings more among young men than teenage boys, suggesting that educational decisions respond to improved earnings prospects, not just opportunity costs. Other explanations for our findings, like changes in school quality, migration, or demographics, receive less empirical support.

JEL-codes: I20 J2 J3 O33 Q33 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-ene, nep-ino, nep-lma and nep-ure
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Published as Elizabeth U. Cascio & Ayushi Narayan, 2022. "Who Needs a Fracking Education? The Educational Response to Low-Skill-Biased Technological Change," ILR Review, vol 75(1), pages 56-89.

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