IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pav/wpaper/146.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shortening university career fades the signal away. Evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Carolina Castagnetti

    (Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods, University of Pavia)

  • Silvia Dal Bianco

    (Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods, University of Pavia)

  • Luisa Rosti

    (Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods, University of Pavia)

Abstract

Italian university system was reformed in 2001. This paper tests the screening role of degree scores for 2004-Italian graduates. We find support of the strong screening hypothesis for prereform type degrees, while we do not find any evidence of signalling effects for post-reform 3-years degrees. We gauge that the shutting down of the signal can be partially ascribed to the poor quality of students who obtained a 3-years degree without taking any further education.

Suggested Citation

  • Carolina Castagnetti & Silvia Dal Bianco & Luisa Rosti, 2011. "Shortening university career fades the signal away. Evidence from Italy," Quaderni di Dipartimento 146, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods.
  • Handle: RePEc:pav:wpaper:146
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dem-web.unipv.it/web/docs/dipeco/quad/ps/RePEc/pav/wpaper/q146.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph G. Altonji & Charles R. Pierret, 2001. "Employer Learning and Statistical Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 313-350.
    2. Brown, Sarah & Sessions, John G, 1998. "Education, Employment Status and Earnings: A Comparative Test of the Strong Screening Hypothesis," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 45(5), pages 586-591, November.
    3. Sarah Brown & John Sessions, 1998. "Education, Employment Status and Earnings: A Comparative Test of the Strong Screening Hypothesis," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 45(5), pages 586-591, November.
    4. Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1977. "Education and Screening," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 949-958, December.
    5. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:9:y:2005:i:4:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Cappellari, Lorenzo & Lucifora, Claudio, 2009. "The "Bologna Process" and college enrollment decisions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 638-647, December.
    7. Riley, John G, 1979. "Testing the Educational Screening Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 227-252, October.
    8. Arnaud Chevalier, 2003. "Measuring Over-education," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 70(279), pages 509-531, August.
    9. G. Boero & T. Laureti & R. Naylor, 2005. "An econometric analysis of student withdrawal and progression in post-reform Italian Universities," Working Paper CRENoS 200504, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    10. Psacharopoulos, George, 1979. "On the weak versus the strong version of the screening hypothesis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 181-185.
    11. Thomas O. BRODATY & Robert J. GARY-BOBO & Ana PRIETO, 2009. "Does Speed Signal Ability , A Test of Spence's Theory," Working Papers 2009-02, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    12. Luisa Rosti & Chikara Yamaguchi & Carolina Castagnetti, 2005. "Educational Performance as Signalling Device: Evidence from Italy," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(4), pages 1-7.
    13. Arnaud Chevalier & Colm Harmon & Ian Walker & Yu Zhu, 2004. "Does Education Raise Productivity, or Just Reflect it?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(499), pages 499-517, November.
    14. Bosio, Giulio & Leonardi, Marco, 2011. "The Impact of Bologna Process on the Graduate Labour Market: Demand and Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 5789, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Giorgio Di Pietro & Andrea Cutillo, 2006. "University Quality and Labour Market Outcomes in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 20(1), pages 37-62, March.
    16. Brown, Sarah & Sessions, John G., 1999. "Education and employment status: a test of the strong screening hypothesis in Italy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 397-404, October.
    17. John Heywood & Xiangdong Wei, 2004. "Education and Signaling: Evidence from a Highly Competitive Labor Market," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16.
    18. Fabian Lange, 2007. "The Speed of Employer Learning," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 1-35.
    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. Luisa Rosti & Chikara Yamaguchi & Carolina Castagnetti, 2005. "Educational Performance as Signalling Device: Evidence from Italy," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(4), pages 1-7.
    2. Stephan O. Hornig & Horst Rottmann & Rüdiger Wapler, 2009. "Information Asymmetry, Education Signals and the Case of Ethnic and Native Germans," CESifo Working Paper Series 2683, CESifo.
    3. Andrew Clark, 2000. "Signalling and Screening in a Transition Economy: Three Empirical Models Applied to Russia," CERT Discussion Papers 0003, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
    4. Garcia-Mainar, Inmaculada & Montuenga, Victor M., 2019. "The signalling role of over-education and qualifications mismatch," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 99-119.
    5. Carolina Castagnetti & Luisa Rosti, 2010. "The Gender Gap in Academic Achievements of Italian Graduates," Quaderni di Dipartimento 118, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods.
    6. Abbi Kedir & Andri Kyrizi & Francisco Martinez-Mora, 2012. "Signalling and Productivity Effects of Overeducation: Is It Really a Waste of Resources?," Discussion Papers in Economics 12/19, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    7. Fossen, Frank M. & Büttner, Tobias J.M., 2013. "The returns to education for opportunity entrepreneurs, necessity entrepreneurs, and paid employees," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 66-84.
    8. Brown, Sarah & Sessions, John G., 2006. "Evidence on the relationship between firm-based screening and the returns to education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 498-509, October.
    9. Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2011. "Schooling, employer learning, and internal labor market effect: Wage dynamics and human capital investment in the Japanese steel industry, 1930-1960s," MPRA Paper 30597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Hussey, Andrew, 2012. "Human capital augmentation versus the signaling value of MBA education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 442-451.
    11. Carolina Castagnetti & Luisa Rosti, 2011. "Who skims the cream of the Italian graduate crop? Wage employment versus self-employment," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 223-234, February.
    12. Miller, Paul W. & Mulvey, Charles & Martin, Nick, 2004. "A test of the sorting model of education in Australia," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 473-482, October.
    13. Justin Van Der Sluis & Mirjam Van Praag & Wim Vijverberg, 2008. "Education And Entrepreneurship Selection And Performance: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 795-841, December.
    14. Castagnetti, Carolina & Rosti, Luisa, 2009. "Effort allocation in tournaments: The effect of gender on academic performance in Italian universities," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 357-369, June.
    15. Anu Tokila & Hannu Tervo, 2011. "Regional differences in returns to education for entrepreneurs versus wage earners," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 47(3), pages 689-710, December.
    16. Gemus, Jonathan, 2010. "College Achievement and Earnings," Working Paper Series 2010:1, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    17. Oppedisano, Veruska, 2014. "Higher education expansion and unskilled labour market outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 205-220.
    18. Inmaculada Garc�a Mainar & V�ctor M. Montuenga G�mez, 2004. "Returns to education and to experience within the EU: are there differences between wage earners and the self-employed?," Documentos de Trabajo dt2004-08, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Zaragoza.
    19. Waldman, Michael, 2016. "The dual avenues of labor market signaling," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 120-134.
    20. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:9:y:2005:i:4:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Theodore Koutmeridis, 2013. "The Market for "Rough Diamonds": Information, Finance and Wage Inequality," CDMA Working Paper Series 201307, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis, revised 14 Oct 2013.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Screening; Italy; Higher Education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies

    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:pav:wpaper:146. 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: Paolo Bonomolo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dppavit.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.