IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2003.10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

School Quality and Family Background in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Giorgio Brunello

    (University of Padua, CESifo and IZA)

  • Daniele Checchi

    (wTw, University of Milan)

Abstract

We study if the combined significant reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio and increase in parental education observed in Italy between the end of IIWW and the end of 1980s had a significant impact on the educational attainment and labor market returns of a representative sample of Italians born between 1941 and 1970. We find that the lower pupil-teacher ratio is positively correlated with higher educational attainment, but that the overall improvement of parental education has had an even stronger impact on attainment. We find that the positive impact of better school quality on educational attainment and returns to education has been particularly significant for individuals born in regions and cohorts with poorer family background. Parental education has had asymmetric effects, positive on attainment and negative on school returns. Better school quality also had asymmetric effects on the returns to education, positive for individuals with poor family background and negative for individuals born in regions and cohorts with relatively high parental education. Our evidence suggests that better school quality, measured by a lower pupil-teacher ratio, is a technical substitute to parental education in the production of individual human capital. When school quality and family background are substitutes, an increase of public resources invested in education can be used to reduce the differences induced by parental education.

Suggested Citation

  • Giorgio Brunello & Daniele Checchi, 2003. "School Quality and Family Background in Italy," Working Papers 2003.10, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2003.10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/NDL2003-010.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:fth:prinin:357 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Wayne Strayer, 2002. "The Returns to School Quality: College Choice and Earnings," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(3), pages 475-503, July.
    3. Checchi, Daniele & Ichino, Andrea & Rustichini, Aldo, 1999. "More equal but less mobile?: Education financing and intergenerational mobility in Italy and in the US," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 351-393, December.
    4. Bruce Sacerdote, 2002. "The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 344-348, May.
    5. Katz, Lawrence F. & Autor, David H., 1999. "Changes in the wage structure and earnings inequality," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 26, pages 1463-1555, Elsevier.
    6. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1992. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Public Schools in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-40, February.
    7. Christian Dustmann & Najma Rajah & Arthur van Soest, 2003. "Class Size, Education, and Wages," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 99-120, February.
    8. Jere R. Behrman & Andrew D. Foster & Mark R. Rosenzweig & Prem Vashishtha, 1999. "Women's Schooling, Home Teaching, and Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(4), pages 682-714, August.
    9. David Card & Alan Krueger, 1996. "Labor Market Effects of School Quality: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 736, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    10. Colm Harmon & Ian Walker, 1997. "Selective Schooling, School Quality, and Labour Market Returns," Keele Department of Economics Discussion Papers (1995-2001) 97/06, Department of Economics, Keele University.
    11. Wright, Robert E., 1999. "The Rate of Return to Private Schooling," IZA Discussion Papers 92, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 1996. "Labor Market Effects of School Quality: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 5450, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Gundlach, Erich & Wossmann, Ludger & Gmelin, Jens, 2001. "The Decline of Schooling Productivity in OECD Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(471), pages 135-147, May.
    14. Lorraine Dearden & Javier Ferri & Costas Meghir, 2002. "The Effect Of School Quality On Educational Attainment And Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 1-20, February.
    15. Betts, Julian R, 1995. "Does School Quality Matter? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(2), pages 231-250, May.
    16. Dustmann, Christian, 2001. "Parental Background, Primary to Secondary School Transitions, and Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 367, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. John Ermisch & Marco Francesconi, 2001. "Family Matters: Impacts of Family Background on Educational Attainments," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 68(270), pages 137-156, May.
    18. Vella, Francis & Gregory, R. G., 1996. "Selection bias and human capital investment: Estimating the rates of return to education for young males," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 197-219, September.
    19. Dearden, Lorraine & Machin, Stephen & Reed, Howard, 1997. "Intergenerational Mobility in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(440), pages 47-66, January.
    20. Sveinbjörn Blöndal & Simon Field & Nathalie Girouard, 2002. "Investment in Human Capital Through Post-Compulsory Education and Training: Selected Efficiency and Equity Aspects," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 333, OECD Publishing.
    21. Brunello, Giorgio & Lupi, Claudio & Ordine, Patrizia, 2001. "Widening differences in Italian regional unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 103-129, January.
    22. Christopher Neilson & Michael Dinerstein & Sebastián Otero, 2020. "The Equilibrium Effects of Public Provision in Education Markets: Evidence from a Public School Expansion Policy," Working Papers 645, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    23. Hanushek, Eric A., 2002. "Publicly provided education," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 30, pages 2045-2141, Elsevier.
    24. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    25. Brunello, Giorgio & Miniaci, Raffaele, 1999. "The economic returns to schooling for Italian men. An evaluation based on instrumental variables1," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 509-519, November.
    26. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-1177, September.
    27. Ermisch, John F & Francesconi, Marco, 1997. "Family Matters," CEPR Discussion Papers 1591, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    28. Stephen V. Cameron & James J. Heckman, 1998. "Life Cycle Schooling and Dynamic Selection Bias: Models and Evidence for Five Cohorts," NBER Working Papers 6385, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Christian Dustmann & Najma Rajah & Arthur van Soest, 2003. "Class Size, Education, and Wages," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 99-120, February.
    2. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    3. Patacchini, Eleonora & Zenou, Yves, 2004. "Intergenerational Education Transmission: Neighborhood Quality and/or Parents' Involvement?," Working Paper Series 631, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    4. Belfield, C. R. & Fielding, A., 2001. "Measuring the relationship between resources and outcomes in higher education in the UK," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 589-602, December.
    5. Bingley, Paul & Heinesen, Eskil & Krassel, Karl Fritjof & Kristensen, Nicolai, 2018. "The Timing of Instruction Time: Accumulated Hours, Timing and Pupil Achievement," IZA Discussion Papers 11807, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Fertig, Michael, 2003. "Educational Production, Endogenous Peer Group Formation and Class Composition - Evidence From the PISA 2000 Study," RWI Discussion Papers 2, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung.
    7. Ludger Wößmann, 2003. "European education production functions: what makes a difference for student achievement in Europe?," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 190, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    8. Marlow, Michael L., 1999. "Spending, school structure, and public education quality. Evidence from California," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 89-106, February.
    9. Pietro Giorgio Lovaglio & Gianmarco Vacca & Stefano Verzillo, 2016. "Human capital estimation in higher education," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 10(4), pages 465-489, December.
    10. Sebastian Bervoets & Antoni Calvó-Armengol & Yves Zenou, 2012. "The Role of Social Networks and Peer Effects in Education Transmission," Working Papers halshs-00793169, HAL.
    11. Eleonora Patacchini & Yves Zenou, 2011. "Neighborhood Effects And Parental Involvement In The Intergenerational Transmission Of Education," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(5), pages 987-1013, December.
    12. Janet Currie & Duncan Thomas, 1999. "Early Test Scores, Socioeconomic Status and Future Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 6943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 1996. "School Resources and Student Outcomes: An Overview of the Literature and New Evidence from North and South Carolina," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 31-50, Fall.
    14. Heineck Guido & Riphahn Regina T., 2009. "Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Attainment in Germany – The Last Five Decades," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 229(1), pages 36-60, February.
    15. Miriam Maeder, 2014. "State-level heterogeneity in returns to secondary schooling in West Germany," Working Papers 147, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    16. Kathryn Wilson, 2000. "Using the Psid to Study the Effects of School Spending," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(5), pages 428-451, September.
    17. Brown, Sarah & Taylor, Karl, 2008. "Bullying, education and earnings: Evidence from the National Child Development Study," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 387-401, August.
    18. Wilson, Kathryn, 2002. "The effects of school quality on income," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 579-588, December.
    19. Eskil Heinesen & Brian Krogh Graversen, 2005. "The effect of school resources on educational attainment: evidence from Denmark," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(2), pages 109-143, April.
    20. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Schhol quality; Family Background;

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fem:femwpa:2003.10. 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: Alberto Prina Cerai (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.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.