Social Interactions in High School: Lessons from an Earthquake
1980年意大利南部地震后，部分城镇的男性青年被免除兵役，导致高中毕业率提高超过2个百分点，且未受兵役影响的女性毕业率也上升，表明存在社会互动溢出效应。
After an earthquake hit Southern Italy in 1980, young men from certain towns were exempted from compulsory military service. We show that the exemption raised high-school-graduation rates of boys by more than 2 percentage points. We do this by comparing high-school-graduation rates of young exempt men and older nonexempt men from the least damaged areas and men of the same age groups from nearby towns that were not hit by the quake. Similar comparisons show that graduation rates of young women in the affected areas also increased. Since in Italy women are not subject to the draft, the findings suggest the presence of spillover effects.