Full Citation

Title: School quality and educational attainment: Japanese American internment as a natural experiment

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2015

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: In 1942, the United States incarcerated all Japanese Americans on the West Coast, including children, in internment camps. Using non-West Coast Japanese Americans and non-Japanese Asians as control groups, I estimate the effect of attending a War Relocation Authority school on educational attainment. Non-linear difference-in-differences estimates suggest that attending school within the internment camps decreased the probability of receiving a post-collegiate education by approximately 4 to 5 percentage points and decreased the probability of receiving a college degree by between 2 and 7 percentage points. I find some evidence that attending a WRA school may have decreased the returns to education as well. By using un-incarcerated birth cohorts and races, placebo tests find no evidence that the identifying assumptions are violated.

Url: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014498315000145

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Saavedra, Martin

Periodical (Full): Explorations in Economic History

Issue:

Volume: 57

Pages: 59-78

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Migration and Immigration

Countries: