High-speed broadband and educational achievements

This study sheds new light on the short-run effects of access to high-speed internet on educational disparities. By following three million students belonging to six different cohorts over the period 2012–2022, I estimate the effect of the broadband infrastructure on student performance. While most previous contributions use discontinuous jumps in the available broadband connection speed across space at a given moment in time, this study exploits the gradual rollout of a national infrastructural policy associated with an increase in 30 Mbit/s household broadband coverage from 40% to 80% over a 6-year period. The estimation strategy relies on a unique data set, combining panel data on student performance with a rich set of school- and student-level information and broadband data measured at a very fine spatial scale. Results show an average null effect of high-speed broadband on 8th grade student performance in both literacy and maths. However, these results mask substantial heterogeneity: low performers in grade 5 and students with more advantaged backgrounds benefit from access to high-speed broadband, whereas the opposite is true for other students. Overall, the findings suggest that access to broadband widened performance disparities across students with different socioeconomic backgrounds.