Citation

Chan J. Appl. Econ. Lett. 2019; 26(2): 83-86.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13504851.2018.1438582

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article explores the causal relationship between college education within a region and that region's interest in hate-related topics. I utilize Google Trends search data for intolerance-related terms to measure regional interest in intolerance, and an instrumental variable based on the historical assignment of land grant colleges to obtain exogenous variation in cross-regional college-educated population shares. I find that there is a negative correlation between a region's college-educated population share and that region's search activity for intolerance-related terms. This correlation does not translate to a causal relationship, however, as the instrumental variables estimates are found to be small and statistically insignificant. This finding suggests that improving access to college-level education may not be an effective policy tool to combat hateful attitudes and behaviour.

Language: en

Keywords

attitudes; google trends; I20; intolerance; J15; Land grant colleges