The Effect of Education on Support for International Trade: Evidence from Compulsory-Education Reforms

Abstract

Across countries and over time, support for economic globalization is strongest among individuals with the highest levels of education. Yet despite long-lasting debates on the sources of this correlation, reliable evidence that isolates the causal effect of education from the nonrandom selection of individuals into education is lacking. To address this fundamental issue, I exploit compulsory-schooling reforms that increased the minimum school-leaving age in eighteen countries. Employing a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, I find that the reform-induced added years of education substantially and durably increased support for trade liberalization. And using new data on the content of school curricula, I find that the effect of schooling largely stems from instilling tolerance and pluralism in citizens and reducing the perceived cultural threat of globalization. In contrast, there is little evidence that the effect of schooling reflects the distributive consequences of international trade, separating globalization winners and losers.