10.17889/E109006
Atkin, David
Replication data for: Endogenous Skill Acquisition and Export Manufacturing in Mexico
ICPSR Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
2015
10.1257/aer.20120901
10.1257/aer.20120901
V0
This paper presents empirical evidence that the growth of export manufacturing in Mexico during a period of major trade reforms (the years 1986 to 2000) altered the distribution of education. I use variation in the timing of factory openings across commuting zones to show that school drop-out increased with local expansions in export-manufacturing industries. The magnitudes I find suggest that for every 25 jobs created, one student dropped out of school at grade 9 rather than continuing through to grade 12. These effects are driven by less-skilled export-manufacturing jobs which raised the opportunity cost of schooling for students at the margin.