Wheeling into School and Out of Crime: Evidence from Linking Driving Licenses to Minimum Academic Requirements

Abstract

No Pass No Drive" (NPND) laws deny or revoke driver's licenses to minors if they drop out of school, are frequent truants, show behavioral problems, and/or have a lowacademic performance. Using Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrest data, we exploit state, time, and cohort variation to show that NPND laws are associated with a significant decline in total crime, DUI and property crime arrests among 16 to 18 year old men. Our event study and Goodman-Bacon decomposition results support the triple difference findings that NPND laws have inherent externality effects on crime and can reduce crime above and beyond compulsory attendance laws. To explore unreported in-school crimes, we use micro data from the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey (YRBS) and variation in NPND strictness. We find that NPND laws decrease in-school risky activities. However, they have unintended consequences when accompaniedwith strict academic or behavioral requirements.

Keywords: No Pass No Drive Laws, Juvenile Crime, Education, Time Use.