Education and Earnings Differentials: The Role of Family Background Across European Countries

The crucial aim of this paper is to investigate, in a generational perspective, the effects of specific dimensions of human capital on individuals earnings and earnings differentials across a selected set of six developed economies of Western Europe with structural differences in their formal education systems and, more generally, in their institutional frameworks. In a cross-country comparison, we intend to inspect how formal education and work experience stand for critical predictors of inequality between and within earner-groups and/or educational groups. In this light, the role of family background on individuals’ earnings in relation to the two main occupational status (i.e., wage-employment rather than self-employment) and, in particular, the impact of parental education and abilities on children’s human capital are argued as well. In order to look into the critical determinants of intergenerational im-mobility, in terms of educational and employment decision-making process, and to what extent they vary across countries, two-stage structural probit models with quantile regressions in the second stage are estimated. As we expect that individual earnings also depend on a range of personal and structural factors and on the family background as well, a set of human capital earnings equations, based on extensions of Mincer models, are estimated by the main employment status. Microdata come from EU-SILC survey, the main new reference source for comparative statistics at European level, which also detects a set of retrospective parental information allowing to account for potential generational changes over time. Briefly, empirical results are interesting, taken as a whole. Although not a few determinants appear to be relatively similar across countries, wider national-specific differentials are drawn. Most of all, it emerges how each component of human capital differently affects individuals’ earnings and earnings inequality across European countries and, most importantly, how this impact differs along the whole earnings distributions. Also, quite dissimilar patterns of influence of family-specific background on children’s outcomes across countries is sketched.

Analyzing the gender gap in European labour markets at the NUTS-1 level

In the labour market framework, gender inequalities penalizing women in participation, remuneration and career still persist almost everywhere, even though there are remarkable differences between countries. At the EU level, in many cases, the levels of these gaps also vary within the same country. According to human capital theory, labour market outcomes should be strongly influenced by the worker's educational level. However, the gender gap endures even in countries where women have surpassed men in education. In this paper, both the aspects of spatial differences (in accordance with the NUTs 1 districts) and the impact of education on the gender gap in the labour market are analysed. With this aim, the composite indicator methodology (including sensitivity analysis involving bootstrap techniques) has been used. The results highlight the substantial stability of the gap in eduacation within the same country but a strong variability in the gap in the labour market outcomes within some countries. Adapting national policies to different regional frameworks could be an efficacious strategy for closing the gap

Does context matter? Exploring the effects of productive structures on the relationship between innovation and workforce skills’ complementarity

Innovation is often seen as a crucial factor for regional economic growth. Many strands of literature have investigated the role of agglomeration externalities or workers’ skills in the innovation capacity of the territory without ever considering their interaction. Using fixed-effects Poisson regression models on official data for 2014–2019 in the Italian regions, this paper aims twofold. First, by controlling for region-specific variables, the paper explores how workforce skills’ complementarity (overlapped skills, connected skills, unlinked skills) and productive structure (i.e. MAR specialised or Jacobs diversified structures) foster innovation. Second, the paper investigates how innovation processes depend on the alternative configurations deriving from the interactions between the productive structure and workers’ skills. While all types of skills participate in the innovation generation process in MAR specialised contexts, only connected skills positively affect innovation performance in Jacobs contexts. Guidelines are provided to help policymakers and managers who increasingly require regional place-based approaches to stimulate innovation

The determinants of land use in Italy from a spatial perspective: A re-interpretation at the time of COVID-19

This work aims at providing a deeper understanding of the main determinants of land use in Italy by using a large dataset drawn from official sources for 2016 (ISTAT, ISPRA, SIEPI). The analysis is carried out at the municipal level (n= 7,798), corresponding to the NUTS-4/LUA level of the Eurostat classification, because in Italy each municipality is the main decision-maker of territorial planning strategies and tools. Moreover, as land use activities impact the environment with inevitable relationships between local agents, the analysis also investigates the effects of local neighbouring factors on land use decision-makers, as well as spatial interactions among local agents distributed in space

How to Foster Innovation? Unpacking Workforce Skills Composition

This work aims to explore the main determinants that favour the capability of a territory to generate and disseminate innovation and the reasons for their possible changes over time (e.g. from low to high level of innovation intensity), considering the geographical concentration of innovative agents, the human capital heritage and labour mobility. Specifically, this contribution will be focused on the Italian provinces, given the current shortage of studies on their adaptive innovation-related skills. The provinces in Italy represent such a geographical detail that they can be considered quite differentiated from each other. Each province is usually characterised by their own productive specialisations and human capital endowments, which represent a strategic factor for economic development

Evaluating the spatial heterogeneity of innovation drivers: a comparison between GWR and GWPR

In studies focusing on innovation activities, the potential spatial heterogeneity in the relationships between innovation and its triggering factors is an unexplored topic. On this ground, this paper aims to a twofold contribution. First, we verify the existence of spatial variability in the relationships. We evaluate the estimation gains due to local regressions, such as geographically weighted regression (GWR) and geographically weighted panel regression (GWPR), with respect to the classical global methods (e.g., OLS, Fixed Effects panel regression). Second, we compare the GWPR with GWR and global models to evaluate if the joint consideration of time and space dimensions allows for the rise of new insights. We resort to official data on 287 NUTS-2 European regions in 2014–2021. The results confirm that GWPR estimations significantly differ from GWR and global models, potentially producing new patterns and findings

Exploring land use determinants in Italian municipalities: comparison of spatial econometric models

This study sets up a spatial econometric framework to explore the factors that best describe land consumption in Italy at the municipal level. By modelling the different types of spatial interactions and geographical proximity between all Italian municipalities, the direct effects of land use drivers are assessed together with spillover effects. Land use data are drawn from the ISPRA-SNPA 82/18 Report and cover all 7,998 Italian municipalities. The results highlight the existence of endogenous and exogenous interaction effects and the crucial role of the demographic, socio-economic and institutional structure on land use intensity. Hence the need for a planning policy aimed at: i) strengthening institutional cooperation to deal with excessive administrative fragmentation; ii) improving institutional and governmental quality to trigger virtuous mechanisms for sustainable land use management

A Multi‑modelling Approach for Assessing Sustainable Tourism

Academics, institutions and policymakers advocate systematic assessments to design sustainable development and implement proper environmental management; however, practical measurements in tourism research based on composite indicators are still in progress. This paper aims to build and validate a composite indicator of sustainable tourism (Sus-Tour-Index), which recognises the economic, environmental and social dimensions as the three main interrelated facets of tourism sustainability. The SusTour-Index is composed of 75 elementary indicators, adequately structured in pillars and sub-pillars within each economic (34), environmental (21) and social dimension (20). A multi-modelling approach tests the hierarchical structure of the SusTour-Index by combining different weighting and aggregation methods within each sustainability dimension to choose the most appropriate model once the uncertainty analysis has been performed. The structure of the SusTour-Index is validated in all 21 Italian regions by performing 23 different models of the same composite indicator. The paper presents theoretical and methodological contributions for future research and advances in practical assessments, supporting policymakers and institutions in planning and managing sustainable tourism development

The Generational Perspective of Gender Gap and Discrimination in Southern Europe

The paper aims at investigating gender differentials in education and wage across four developed countries of southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain), taking into account the generational transmission of preferences and some peculiarities of gender equality policies implemented in each national legislative framework. More precisely, a set of α-indexes – which reflect the whole wage and educational distributions of women – is computed to explore the different extent to which these gaps can be attributed to discrimination. Country-specific differentials are sketched and the often controversial role of national contexts in shaping gender discrimination is discussed

The Generational Perspective of Gender Gap and Discrimination in Southern Europe

The paper aims at investigating gender differentials in education and wage across four developed countries of southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain), taking into account the generational transmission of preferences and some peculiarities of gender equality policies implemented in each national legislative framework. More precisely, a set of α-indexes – which reflect the whole wage and educational distributions of women – is computed to explore the different extent to which these gaps can be attributed to discrimination. Country-specific differentials are sketched and the often controversial role of national contexts in shaping gender discrimination is discussed