Effect of Corporal Punishment on Young Children's Educational Outcomes

It is argued that corporal punishment produces bad outcomes in both the short run and the long run. Instead of making students more attentive or motivated, corporal punishment leads to more delinquent behavior. In most developed countries, corporal punishment is banned in schools. However, in many developing countries, even if corporal punishment in schools is banned, the law may not be adequately enforced. Using a dataset from India, we show that corporal punishment in schools has a significantly negative impact on children's academic performance. To tackle the problem of endogeneity, we use the instrumental variables method and introduce a novel instrument.