Chapter 1: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Dragon Sons: Direct and Cohort Effects of Superstition on Education Attainment: In many parts of East Asia, the fertility rate spikes every 12 years, starting in the 1970s. Researchers have linked this phenomenon to the belief that being born in years associated with the dragon zodiac leads to better outcomes in life; yet the research linking birth years and education outcomes has found mixed results. One potential explanation for the mixed results is opposing mechanisms: being born in dragon zodiac years, the dragon direct effect, may be positive while being in a larger cohort during dragon years, the dragon cohort effect, may be negative. I use the difference between cutoff for determining school cohort and zodiac cohort to estimate the separate effects from each mechanism. Using the Taiwan Social Change Survey, I find evidence of a positive direct effect and a negative cohort effect for those born during dragon zodiac years. I also look at the impact of tiger, a zodiac that is considered to be unfortunate, and found the inverse.Chapter 2: Crowding Out the Shadow: Effect of School Construction on Private Supplementary Education in Taiwan: To reduce after-school private tutoring, the Taiwanese government built more high schools, reasoning that these new schools would increase the number of seats and reduce the pressure of getting into high school. However, it's relatively unknown whether this policy accomplished its intended purpose. Using the 1991-2006 Survey of Family Income and Expenditure, I study the effect of public high school availability on household spending on private tutoring. Exploiting variation in high school construction across counties throughout the 1990s, I find that increase in the probability of getting into a public high school is associated reductions in households' spending and participation on private tutoring.Chapter 3: Schooling the Superstitious: Evidence from Taiwan: Researchers find both an increase in the prevalence of superstitious acts over time and a positive association between an individual's educational attainment and participation in superstitious activities. Yet, these studies do not address selection into education groups. In this paper I examine the causal impact of education, exploiting the extension of compulsory education from six to nine years in Taiwan in 1968. I conduct my analysis using the Taiwan Social Change Survey from 1984 to 2015. IV estimates show that educational attainment decreases belief in superstition and the prevalence of superstitious activities. In contrast, I find that OLS estimates are biased upwards.
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