School Starting Age and Crime

This paper investigates the effects of school starting age on crime while relying on variation in school starting age induced by administrative rules; we exploit that Danish children typically start first grade in the year they turn seven, which gives rise to a discontinuity in children’s schools starting age. Analyses are carried out using register-based Danish data. We find that higher age at school start lowers the propensity to commit crime. Importantly, we find that the individuals who benefit most from being old-for-grade are those with high latent abilities whereas those with low latent ability seem to be unaffected or even worse off by being old-for-grade in school.