IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/labour/v22y2008is1p53-88.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does the Expansion of Higher Education Increase the Equality of Educational Opportunities? Evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Massimiliano Bratti
  • Daniele Checchi
  • Guido De Blasio

Abstract

. This paper studies the role of the expansion of higher education (HE) in increasing the equality of tertiary education opportunities. We examine Italy's experience during the 1990s, when policy changes prompted HE institutions to offer a wider range of degrees and to open new sites in neighbouring provinces. Our analysis focuses on non‐mature full‐time students and suggests that HE expansion might have had only limited effects in terms of reducing existing individual inequality in HE achievement as it had a significantly positive impact only on the probability of university enrolment but not on that of obtaining a university degree.

Suggested Citation

  • Massimiliano Bratti & Daniele Checchi & Guido De Blasio, 2008. "Does the Expansion of Higher Education Increase the Equality of Educational Opportunities? Evidence from Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(s1), pages 53-88, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:22:y:2008:i:s1:p:53-88
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9914.2008.00411.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9914.2008.00411.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9914.2008.00411.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniele Checchi & Luca Flabbi, 2013. "Intergenerational Mobility and Schooling Decisions in Germany and Italy: The Impact of Secondary School Tracks," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 3, pages 7-57, July-Sept.
    2. Sascha O. Becker, 2006. "Introducing Time‐to‐Educate in a Job‐Search Model," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 61-72, January.
    3. Stephen V. Cameron & Christopher Taber, 2004. "Estimation of Educational Borrowing Constraints Using Returns to Schooling," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(1), pages 132-182, February.
    4. Jo Blanden & Stephen Machin, 2013. "Educational Inequality and The Expansion of UK Higher Education," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 60(5), pages 578-596, November.
    5. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    6. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 2000. "Unnatural Experiments? Estimating the Incidence of Endogenous Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages 672-694, November.
    7. Checchi, Daniele & Fiorio, Carlo V. & Leonardi, Marco, 2013. "Intergenerational persistence of educational attainment in Italy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 229-232.
    8. Jeff Borland & Yi-Ping Tseng & Roger Wilkins, 2005. "Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Methods of Microeconomic Program and Policy Evaluation," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2005n08, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    9. J.S. Cramer, 2005. "Omitted Variables and Misspecified Disturbances in the Logit Model," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-084/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Cheti Nicoletti & Marco Francesconi, 2006. "Intergenerational mobility and sample selection in short panels," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(8), pages 1265-1293.
    11. Janet Currie & Enrico Moretti, 2003. "Mother's Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from College Openings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1495-1532.
    12. Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J., 2003. "Human Capital Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 821, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Daniele Checchi, 2003. "The Italian educational system: family background and social stratification," Departmental Working Papers 2003-01, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    14. Federico Cingano & Piero Cipollone, 2007. "University drop-out. The case of Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 626, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Raquel Fernández & Jordi Gali, 1999. "To Each According to …? Markets, Tournaments, and the Matching Problem with Borrowing Constraints," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(4), pages 799-824.
    16. Stephen V. Cameron & James J. Heckman, 2001. "The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Black, Hispanic, and White Males," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 455-499, June.
    17. Giorgio Di Pietro, 2006. "Regional labour market conditions and university dropout rates: Evidence from Italy," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(6), pages 617-630.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pedro Carneiro & Michael Lokshin & Nithin Umapathi, 2017. "Average and Marginal Returns to Upper Secondary Schooling in Indonesia," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 16-36, January.
    2. Francesco Vona, 2011. "Does the Expansion of Higher Education Reduce Educational Inequality? Evidence from 12 European Countries," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2011-12, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    3. Hideo Akabayashi & TIm Ruberg & Chizuru Shikishima & Jun Yamashita, 2023. "Education-Oriented and Care-Oriented Preschools:Implications on Child Development," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2023-009, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    4. Akabayashi, Hideo & Ruberg, Tim & Shikishima, Chizuru & Yamashita, Jun, 2023. "Education-oriented and care-oriented preschools: Implications on child development," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.
    6. Regina Riphahn & Florian Schieferdecker, 2012. "The transition to tertiary education and parental background over time," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 635-675, January.
    7. Benjamin W. Cowan & Nathan Tefft, 2020. "College Access and Adult Health," NBER Working Papers 26685, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Giorgio Gobbi & Roberta Zizza, 2007. "Does the Underground Economy Hold Back Financial Deepening? Evidence from the Italian Credit Market," CEP Discussion Papers dp0789, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Checchi, Daniele & Fiorio, Carlo V. & Leonardi, Marco, 2013. "Intergenerational persistence of educational attainment in Italy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 229-232.
    10. James J. Heckman & Stefano Mosso, 2014. "The Economics of Human Development and Social Mobility," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 689-733, August.
    11. Lídia Farré & Roger Klein & Francis Vella, 2013. "A parametric control function approach to estimating the returns to schooling in the absence of exclusion restrictions: an application to the NLSY," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 111-133, February.
    12. Daniele Checchi & Luca Flabbi, 2013. "Intergenerational Mobility and Schooling Decisions in Germany and Italy: The Impact of Secondary School Tracks," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 3, pages 7-57, July-Sept.
    13. Mihails Hazans & Ija Trapeznikova, 2006. "Access to Secondary Education in Albania: Incentives, Obstacles, and Policy Spillovers," SSE Riga/BICEPS Research Papers 2006-1, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS);Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga).
    14. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J., 2011. "Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 16, pages 1487-1541, Elsevier.
    15. Carsten Ochsen, 2011. "Recommendation, class repeating, and children's ability: German school tracking experiences," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(27), pages 4127-4133.
    16. By Vincenzo Carrieri & Marcello D’Amato & Roberto Zotti, 2015. "On the causal effects of selective admission policies on students’ performances: evidence from a quasi-experiment in a large Italian university," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 1034-1056.
    17. Juergen Jung & Vinish Shrestha, 2018. "The Affordable Care Act And College Enrollment Decisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 1980-2009, October.
    18. Théophile T. Azomahou & Eleni Yitbarek, 2021. "Intergenerational mobility in education: Is Africa different?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 503-523, July.
    19. Pedro Carneiro & James J. Heckman & Edward J. Vytlacil, 2011. "Estimating Marginal Returns to Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2754-2781, October.
    20. Lucia Rizzica, 2018. "Raising aspirations and higher education: evidence from the UK’s Widening Participation policy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1188, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:22:y:2008:i:s1:p:53-88. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csrotit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.