Daniele Checchi

Does school tracking affect equality of opportunity? New international evidence

This paper investigates whether at the interaction between family background and school tracking affects human capital accumulation. Our a priori view is that more tracking should reinforce the role of parental privilege, and thereby reduce equality of opportunity. Compared to the current literature, which focuses on early outcomes, such as test scores at 13 and 15, we look at later outcomes, including literacy, dropout rates, college enrolment, employability and earnings. While we do not confirm previous results that tracking reinforces family background effects on literacy, we do confirm our view when looking at educational attainment and labour market outcomes. When looking at early wages, we find that parental background effects are stronger when tracking starts earlier. We reconcile the apparently contrasting results on literacy, educational attainment and earnings by arguing that the signalling role of formal education – captured by attainment – matters more than actual skills – measured by literacy – in the early stages of labour market experience.

Labour Market Institutions and the Personal Distribution of Income in the OECD

We examine what determines differences across countries and over time in the distribution of personal incomes in the OECD. We first model the wage determination process and show that unemployment, the labour share, and the wage differential are all functions of labour market institutions. Next we show that in a model economy with only four types of agents – capitalists, skilled and unskilled workers, and unemployed – the Gini coefficient of personal incomes can be expressed as a function of the above three variables. Labour market institutions hence affect income inequality, though the sign of their impact is ambiguous. Stronger unions and/or a more generous unemployment benefit tend to reduce inequality through reduced wage differentials, a higher labour share, and also higher unemployment. We then use a panel of OECD countries for the period 1970-96 to examine these effects. We find, first, that the labour share remains an important aspect of overall inequality patterns, and, second, that stronger unions and a more generous unemployment benefit tend to reduce income inequality. High capital-labour ratios also emerge as a strong equalising factor, which has in part offset the impact of increasing wage inequality on the US distribution of personal incomes.

Does the Expansion of Higher Education Increase the Equality of Educational Opportunities? Evidence from Italy

This paper studies the role of the expansion of higher education (HE) in increasing the equality of tertiary education opportunities. It examines Italy’s experience during the 1990s, when policy changes prompted HE institutions to offer a wider range of degrees and to open new sites in neighbouring provinces. Our analysis focuses on non-mature full-time students and the results suggest that the expansion might have had only limited effects in terms of reducing existing individual inequality in HE achievement as the greater availability of courses had a significantly positive impact only on the probability of university enrolment but not on that of obtaining a university degree.

Adjusting Labour Demand: Multinational vs. National Firms A Cross-European Analysis

This paper provides a cross-country perspective to the firm-level analysis of the relation between foreign ownership and labour demand. We estimate labour demand equations in eleven European countries using dynamic panel data techniques on samples that permit to distinguish the ownership status of firms. We find that the employment adjustment is significantly faster in MNEs’ affiliates, irrespective of the country investigated. As for the wage elasticity of labour demand, MNEs show smaller elasticities compared with national firms, and very little variation across countries. Crosscountry correlations show that the relative value of wage elasticities in MNEs on that in NEs is positively related to country-level indexes of labour market regulation (employment protection, union presence,...). We interpret the results as follows. MNEs tend to have a more rigid demand for total labour (possibly due to a different skill composition). However, being MNEs relatively “footloose”, this difference tends to vanish as the rigidity of employment regulations rises.

Mobility comparisons: does using different measures matter?

In this paper we review alternative measure of intergenerational mobility, emphasizing the distinction between absolute, relative and ordinal mobility. We then compare the performance of various mobility indices using real data. From Treiman and Ganzeboom (1990) dataset we compare the degree of occupational and educational intergenerational (father-son) mobility in 16 countries in a single year (comprised between 1968 and 1982). From three Bank of Italy surveys (1993-1995-1998) we obtain a comparable measure of social prestige and we show that intergenerational mobility in Italy across regions or age cohort exhibits different trends according to different indicators. We suggest that ordinal relative and absolute measures provide divergent indications whenever we compare mobility data with markedly different marginal distributions.

Institutional Reforms and Educational Attainment in Europe: A Long Run Perspective

In this paper we study the effects of educational reforms on school attainment. We construct a dataset of relevant reforms that occurred at the national level over the last century, and match individual information from 24 European countries to the most likely set�?up faced when individual educational choices were undertaken. Our identification strategy relies on temporal and geographical variations in the institutional arrangements, controlling for time/country fixed effects, as well as for country specific time trend. By characterizing each group of reforms for their impact on mean years of education, educational inequality and intergenerational persistence, we show an ideal policy menu which has been available to policymakers. We distinguish between groups of policies that are either ‘inclusive’ or ‘selective’, depending on their diminishing or augmenting impact on inequality and persistence. Finally, we correlate these reform measures to political coalitions prevailing in parliament, finding support for the idea that left�?wing parties support reforms that are inclusive, while right�?wing parties prefer selective ones.

Inequality in Incomes and Access to Education: A Cross-country Analysis (1960-95)

In the current debate on the relationship between inequality in income distribution and growth one of the possible link works through the access to education. After reviewing this debate, a formal model shows how the imperfection of financial markets makes educational choices dependent on the distribution; and a positive dependence on public resources invested in education and/or on skill for the period 1960-95. The main findings of this analysis are that, once we control for the degree of development with the (log of) per capita output, financial constraints seems mainly relevant in limiting the access to secondary education. Finally, there is weak evidence that public resources spent on education raise the enrolment rates.

Risk and the distribution of human capital

Abstract We developed a model in which aggregate production risk determines the average level of education and its distribution. Greater risk is associated with greater educational inequality and a lower average attainment. An empirical test using panel data supports this conclusion.

University education in Italy

Notwithstanding the low level of tuition fees and absence of other access barriers, Italy is characterised by low educational achievement at university level. Possible reasons for this phenomenon are examined and a formal model is proposed predicting that families will invest more in their children the higher a child’s unobservable “ability”. Since family income provides an incentive for better student performance, richer parents internalise this effect by investing more resources in the education of their children. This study’s empirical analysis does not contradict this theoretical model. Using the Bank of Italy’s representative sample of the Italian population (1995), we observe that family income does not prevent enrolment at the university, whereas unobservable “ability” is more relevant, especially as it shapes the secondary education choices. Using administrative data on students enrolled in some faculties of the State University of Milan in 1995‐1996, we show that students’ performance is positively correlated with unobservable “ability” and with family income. We take this last evidence as supporting the idea of family networking – students from richer families tend to go quicker because they have better prospects when they leave university.

Inequality and Union Membership: The Influence of Relative Earnings and Inequality Attitudes

Using surveys from the International Social Survey Programme covering the period 1985–2002 for seven European countries (West and East Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain), we examine the effect of relative earnings on union membership and show that union density is higher among workers in the intermediate earnings group than among low or high earners. Next, we examine the association of inequality attitudes with union membership and demonstrate that union membership is not only motivated by instrumental considerations related to relative earnings, but also by normative concerns about inequality. We interpret our findings suggesting that rising earnings inequality is in itself a source of union decline.