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Title: When the Revolution Hits the University: College Aspirations at the Time of Upheaval

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2018

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Abstract: A fundamental problem in education policy is how much educational outcomes are affected by government interventions on the supply side of the market. This paper is a response to this policy debate using a natural experiment setting in one of the most under-studied countries, Iran. It measures the effect of Iranian Cultural Revolution during which institutions of higher education were closed and supply of higher education was completely eliminated for 30 months. Using a regression discontinuity design, this paper documents the causal effect of this temporary elimination of supply of higher education on college attainment rates of affected cohorts. The results show that there is a small impact on men’s college attainment rate (about 10% or 1.5 percentage points) and no evidence of impact on women’s. This corroborates the argument that government interventions have little impact on educational outcomes when demand for education is high. It has important implications for higher education policy in both developing and developed countries. The Cultural Revolution is then used as an instrument to estimate return to college education for men.

Url: http://aalims.org/uploads/Majbouri_When-the-revolution-hits-the-university_Aalims.pdf

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Authors: Majbouri, Mahdi

Publisher: Babson College

Data Collections: IPUMS International

Topics: Education

Countries: Iran