The Impact of Bologna Process on the GraduateLabour Market: Demand and Supply

The Bologna process inspired the Italian 3+2 reform of the university system whichconstitutes a big increase in the supply of college graduates. This paper is a preliminaryattempt to identify the effects of the reform on (i) the relative probability (relative to nongraduates)of employment of college graduates in the age range 25-34; (ii) their quality ofemployment measured with the relative probability of being employed with a temporarycontract; (iii) the college wage premium. Using administrative data to identify the gradualintroduction of the reform in different universities, we find that the reform increasessignificantly the relative employment of graduates except for women in the South where therapid increase of female post-reform graduates has not been absorbed by the weak labourmarket. Finally we find that post-reform college graduates have a significantly lower collegepremium with respect to high school graduates than pre-reform graduates....