Simona Comi

Education and Earnings Growth: Evidence from 11 European Countries

We use cohort data from 11 European countries to study whether experience profiles differ by educational attainment. Previous literature does not provide a clear answer to this question, that is important to evaluate private returns to education over the working life of individuals. We find evidence that employees with tertiary education have steeper experience profiles than employees with upper secondary or compulsory education. Hence, education provides not only an initial labor market advantage but also a permanent advantage that increases with time in the labor market. We also find that differences in earnings growth by education are lower in countries with a higher level of corporatism and higher in countries which have experienced both relatively fast labor productivity growth and a relatively low educational attainment. The educational system also seems to matter, because countries with a more stratified system of secondary education have smaller differences in earnings growth by education.

The College Wage Gap in 10 European Countries: Evidence from Two Cohorts

We study the recent evolution of the college wage gap with a unique data set that comprises two cohorts and 10 European countries from the early to mid 1980s to the mid to late 1990s. We find evidence of significant cross country differences in the level and dynamics of the gap. There is also evidence that both the level and the growth of the college wage gap significantly differ between cohorts. The estimated growth in the gap turns out to be negatively correlated to changes in relative supply and positively correlated both with the long run rate of productivity growth and with an index of between industry demand shocks. Institutional changes also matter, and we find that countries that have experienced declines in union density, in the centralization of the wage bargain and in employment protection measures have also had a faster growth in the college wage gap.

Where Women Make the Difference. The Effects of Corporate Board Gender Quotas on Firms' Performance across Europe

We study the effect of corporate board gender quotas on firm performance in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. The empirical analysis is based on accounting panel data from Bureau Van Dijk’s Amadeus. Our identification strategy relies on both double and triple difference estimators with ex-ante matching. We find that gender quotas had either a negative or an insignificant effect on firm performance in the countries considered with the exception of Italy, where we find a positive impact on productivity. We then focus on Italy and offer possible explanations for the positive effect of gender quotas using detailed information on board members’ characteristics.