Youth's Educational Response to DACA

This paper studies the human capital responses to a large shock in the returns to education for undocumented youth. The researchers examine variation in the benefits of schooling from the enactment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy in 2012, which provides work authorization and deferral from deportation for high school educated youth. 

The researchers find that DACA had a significant impact on the education decisions of undocumented youth. High school graduation rates increased by 15 percent while teenage births declined by 45 percent. College attendance increased by 25 percent among women, suggesting that DACA raised aspirations for education above and beyond qualifying for legal status. 

The same individuals who acquire more schooling also work more (at the same time), counter to the typical intuition that these behaviors are mutually exclusive, indicating that the program generated a large boost in productivity.