Does the choice of university matter? A study of the differences across uk universities in life sciences students' degree performance.

This paper investigates differences across UK universities in 1993 life sciences students' degree performance using individual-level data from the Universities' Statistical Record (USR). Differences across universities are analyzed by specifying and estimating a subject-specific educational production function.EDUCATION ; PRODUCTION ; SCHOOLS

The gravity of quality : research quality and the attractiveness of universities in Italy

This paper investigates whether or not research quality is significantly associated with a university\u2019s ability to attract students from other provinces in Italy. First-university enrolments of students over the period 2003\u201311 are regressed on universities\u2019 research-quality indicators computed from various bibliometric databases using fixed-effects gravity models. The estimates suggest that research performance is a significant predictor of student enrolment, with estimated elasticities between 0.013 and 0.059, depending on the indicator used

The impact of family size and sibling structure on the great Mexico–USA migration

We investigate the impact of fertility and demographic factors on the Great Mexico\u2013USA immigration by assessing the causal effects of sibship size and structure on migration decisions within the household. We use a rich demographic survey on the population of Mexico and exploit presumably exogenous variation in family size induced by biological fertility and infertility shocks. We further exploit cross-sibling differences to identify the effects of birth order, siblings\u2019 sex, and siblings\u2019 ages on migration. We find that large families per se do not boost offspring\u2019s emigration. However, the likelihood of migrating is not equally distributed within a household. It is higher for sons and decreases sharply with birth order. The female migration disadvantage also varies with sibling composition by age and gender

Employment protection and firm-provided training in dual labour markets

In this paper we leverage a labour market reform (Fornero Law) which reduced firing restrictions for open-ended contracts in the case of firms with more than 15 employees in Italy. The results from a Difference in Regression Discontinuities design demonstrate that after the reform, the number of trained workers increased in firms just above the threshold by approximately 1.5 additional workers. We show that this effect can be explained by the reduction in worker turnover and a higher use of permanent contracts. Our study highlights the potentially adverse effects of employment protection legislation on training in dual labour markets

The impact of family size and sibling structure on the great Mexico-USA migration

We investigate the impact of fertility and demographic factors on the Great Mexico-USA immigration by assessing the causal effects of sibship size and structure on migration decisions within the household. We use a rich demographic survey on the population of Mexico and exploit presumably exogenous variation in family size induced by biological fertility and infertility shocks. We further exploit cross-sibling differences to identify the effects of birth order, siblings' sex, and siblings' ages on migration. We find that large families per se do not boost offspring's emigration. However, the likelihood of migrating is not equally distributed within a household. It is higher for sons and decreases sharply with birth order. The female migration disadvantage also varies with sibling composition by age and gender

Education, Health and Health-Related Behaviors: Evidence from Higher Education Expansion

This study throws light on the potential non-linear effects of education on individual health and health-related behaviors, finding a strong role for higher education. Using an instrumental variables (IVs) strategy, which leverages changes in within-province between-municipality college proximity across birth cohorts, we demonstrate that higher education affects individual health-related behavior. By contrast, IVs estimates based on a compulsory schooling age reform show mostly non-significant effects. Our results point to a complex link between education and health. On the one hand, higher education channels individuals into some healthy behaviors and better health outcomes namely healthy eating, more physical activity and a lower risk of obesity. On the other hand, it also appears to increase the prevalence of certain unhealthy behaviors, such as greater smoking and drinking prevalence and higher cigarettes consumption. Albeit effects are generally similar across genders, except in few cases (e.g. smoking behavior), our analysis highlights heterogeneous effects by age and helps explain potential differences in results reported in past quasi-experimental studies in which the cohorts affected by the educational reforms used for identification are observed at given ages and not over an individual’s entire lifecycle

Immigrant entrepreneurs, diasporas, and exports

This paper demonstrates the positive effect of immigrant entrepreneurs on manufacturing exports over and above that of diasporas. Using small\u2010scale regional administrative data, our instrumental variable estimates of export gravity models imply that ceteris paribus, that is, holding constant the total number of immigrants, the expected protrade effect of a migrant becoming an entrepreneur amounts to an average increase of US$5,946 in the export flows toward her country of origin. Besides these dyadic effects, immigrant entrepreneurs unlike nonentrepreneurial immigrants raise a region's overall competitiveness and export flows toward other destinations as well

Social Class and Undergraduate Degree Subject in the UK

Although past research has found strong social class effects on the decision to undertake higher education in the UK, there is only sparse empirical work investigating social class influences on the choice of degree subject at the undergraduate level. Using Universities' Statistical Record data for the period 1981-1991, we find no social class effect on students' undergraduate degree subjects enrolled. Our analysis suggests that in a period pre-dating the mass expansion of higher education, the replacement of student grants with student loans and the introduction of undergraduate student tuition fees, the UK university system granted equal opportunities to students from different social classes in terms of the degree subject enrolled