Kristiina Huttunen (Aalto University)

Lost boys: Transition to post-compulsory education and crime (with Tuomas Pekkarinen, Roope Uusitalo and Hanna Virtanen)

Abstract:  This paper studies the effect of post-compulsory education on crime by exploiting a regression discontinuity design created by admission cutoffs at upper secondary schools in Finland. We combine register data on secondary school applications and enrollment with individual data on criminal convictions and follow individuals up to 10 years after the first upper secondary school application. Our results show that successful applicants near the admission cutoffs have larger probability to obtain upper secondary degree than applicants just below the cutoffs. They are also less likely to commit crimes, both in the short and medium run.