中文摘要
公民外部性是教育支出的动因之一，但关于大规模教育补贴之公民回报的估计仍十分稀缺。本文利用1600万份助学金申请数据与断点回归（RD）设计，估计一项免学费大学项目对政治参与的影响。我们发现，在260万份资助中，每一份都使受助学生在2020年的投票率提高了4—12个百分点，从而提升了发放该资助所在州的总体投票率及拜登的胜选优势。我们发现了与同伴社会化等机制相一致的证据，并表明教育支出的公民外部性可能大到足以左右选举结果。（JEL D72, D91, I22, I23）
Abstract
Civic externalities motivate education expenditures, but estimates of the civic returns to large-scale education subsidies are scarce. We use 16 million financial aid applications and a regression discontinuity (RD) design to estimate how a tuition-free college program impacts political participation. We find that each of the 2.6 million awards increased a student’s voter turnout rate by 4–12 percentage points in 2020, raising total turnout and Biden’s margin of victory in the awarding state. We find evidence consistent with peer socialization, among other mechanisms, and show that the civic externalities of education spending can be large enough to sway elections. (JEL D72, D91, I22, I23)