High‐Speed Broadband and Educational Achievements

ABSTRACT 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.