Local Colleges Cushion Automation's Blow—and Boost Support for Higher Education

Why Voters Differ on Government's Role?

Carlos Xabel Lastra Anadón, Kenneth Scheve, and David Stasavage investigate why voters hold divergent beliefs about government responsibility for solving social problems, focusing on how skill-biased technological change interacts with local investment in higher education. The authors ask whether and how exposure to technological change and local higher-education investment shape both economic outcomes and public support for government spending on education.

What the Authors Do

The paper analyzes variation across U.S. counties in exposure to skill-biased technological change, local investment in higher education, economic outcomes (notably negative income or employment impacts associated with technological change), and measures of public support for higher-education spending. The authors use county-level observational analysis and statistical models to examine correlations between higher-education investment, economic resilience to technological change, and shifts in public opinion about education spending.

Key Findings

• Counties with greater local investment in higher education show a weaker negative relationship between technological change and income outcomes, consistent with higher education mitigating some harms of skill-biased technological change.
• Greater exposure to counties that invest more in higher education is correlated with stronger public support for government spending on higher education.
• Evidence is consistent with learning being history dependent: communities that already believed education was productive are more likely to update beliefs and recognize the benefits of higher-education investment when exposed to its protective effects.

What This Suggests

The findings imply a mutually reinforcing political and economic dynamic: local higher-education investment appears associated with both measurable economic cushioning against technological disruption and greater public willingness to fund education—but that learning about these benefits depends on preexisting beliefs in the community. This history dependence matters for debates about where and how public investments in education build durable political support.