Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates

This paper addresses the gender pay gap among Italian university graduates on entry to the labour market and stresses the importance of gender stereotypes on subjective assessment of individual productivity. Our data show that in contexts where the stereotype is most likely to occur, the unexplained component of the gender pay gap is higher. Moreover, we find evidence that being excellent at school does not ensures that a woman will be rewarded as an equivalently performing man, but serves to counteract the gender bias in on-the-job evaluations

The Gender Gap in Academic Achievements of Italian Graduates

We analyse the academic performance of Italian students who graduated in 2004, and their occupational status and earnings in 2007. We find that the educational and occupational performances of male and female students do differ: girls outperform boys in academic achievement, but male graduates outperform female graduates in labour market outcomes. One could wonder why female students put more effort into educational performance than male students, given that they will receive lower wages. We find a rationale for this choice in the higher marginal return that female students gain from their higher grades. We address our empirical analysis to four points: first, we show that, for the most part, the difference in educational performance is explained by the diversity in unobserved characteristics between male and female students. Second, we provide empirical evidence that the amount of effort supplied is the key determinant of the unobserved characteristics. Third, we argue that female students study hardly because they gain a higher marginal return from success in educational competition. Fourth, as this finding may be consistent with both human capital and sorting models of education, we test the hypothesis that female students use their higher grades to signal their ability to potential employers.

Who skims the cream of the Italian graduate crop? Wage-employment versus self-employment

This paper tests whether the academic achievement is a significant determinant of the employment status in the Italian labor market: are the new entrepreneurs selected from the top or bottom end of the graduates ability distribution? Is the cream of the graduate crop pulled into selfemployment by the higher expected earnings or are the individuals with lower degree score pushed into entrepreneurship by poor alternatives? Our data show a strong negative relation between academic achievement and self-employment status, i.e. we assess the skimming of the best graduates into wage and salary work.

Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates

This paper addresses the gender pay gap among Italian university graduates on entry to the labour market and stresses the importance of gender stereotypes on subjective assessment of individual productivity. Our data show that in contexts where the stereotype is most likely to occur, the unexplained component of the gender pay gap is higher. Moreover, we find evidence that being excellent at school does not ensures that a woman will be rewarded as an equivalently performing man, but serves to counteract the gender bias in on-the-job evaluations.

Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates

This paper addresses the gender pay gap among Italian university graduates on entry to the labour market and stresses the importance of gender stereotypes on subjective assessment of individual productivity. Our data show that in contexts where the stereotype is most likely to occur, the unexplained component of the gender pay gap is higher. Moreover, we find evidence that being excellent at school does not ensures that a woman will be rewarded as an equivalently performing man, but serves to counteract the gender bias in on-the-job evaluationsLabour market; Italy; Gender pay gap; Education; Stereotypes

Euro corporate bonds risk factors

This paper investigates the determinants of credit spread changes in Euro-denominated bonds. Because credit spread changes can be easily viewed as an excess return on corporate bonds over treasury bonds, we adopt a factor model framework, inspired by the credit risk structural approach. We try to assess the relative importance of market and idiosyncratic factors in explaining the movements in credit spreads. We adopt a heterogeneous panel with a multifactor error model and propose a two-step estimation procedure which yields consistent estimates of unobserved factors. The analysis is carried out with a panel of monthly redemption yields on a set of corporate bonds for a time span of three years. Our results suggest that the Euro corporate market is driven by observable and unobservable factors. Where the latter are identified through a consistent estimation of individual and common observable effects. We observe that the factors predicted by the structural model are not as relevant as in the case of the US market. The empirical results also suggest that an unobserved common factor has a significant role in explaining the systematic changes in credit spreads. However, contrary to the American evidence, it cannot be identified as a market factor.Euro Corporate Bonds; Cross Section Dependence; Common Correlated Effects; Yield Curve

Educational Performance as Signalling Device: Evidence from Italy

Following Brown and Sessions (1999) we apply the comparative techniques originated by Wolpin (1977) and Psacharopoulos (1979) to discriminate between the weak and strong screening hypotheses. Our data provides additional empirical results for the Italian labour market shifting the focus of the relationship between education and wages from the highest level of education completed to more specific measurements like degree score and completion speed. Our results show that the strong screening hypothesis is strengthened, i. e. that educational performance has an insignificant return for the self-employed, but a significantly positive return for employees.

And Yet they Co-Move! Public Capital and Productivity in OECD: A Panel Cointegration Analysis with Cross-Section Dependence

In this paper we add to the debate on the public capital - productivity link by exploiting very recent developments in the panel time series literature that take into account cross sectional correlation in non-stationary panels. In particular we evaluate the productive effect of public capital by estimating various production functions for a panel of 21 OECD countries over the period 1975-2002. We find strong evidence of common factors that drive the cointegration relationship among variables; moreover, our results suggest a public capital elasticity of GDP in the range 0.05-0.15, depending on model specification. Results are robust to the evidence of spillovers from public capital investments in other countries and to controlling for other productivity determinants like human capital, the stock of patents and R&D capital.Public capital; Productivity; Panel Cointegration; Cross-section Dependence.

Shortening university career fades the signal away. Evidence from Italy.

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.Screening, Italy, Higher Education

And Yet they Co-Move! Public Capital and Productivity in OECD.

In this paper we add to the debate on the public capital-productivity link by applying very recent developments in the panel time series literature that take into account cross sectional correlation in non-stationary panels. In particular we evaluate the productive effect of public capital by estimating various production functions on a panel of 21 OECD countries over the period 1975-2002. Our results suggest that public capital has a positive long run impact on output, with elasticities that range between 0.05-0.15, depending on model specification. These findings are robust to the existence of spillover effects from public capital investments in other countries and to the inclusion of other productivity determinants, like human capital, the stock of patents and R&D capital. Finally, we do not find any important effect of public capital on GDP in the short run: this suggests that public infrastructure investments might not be a powerful countercyclical policy instrument