We examine the relationship between education and mortality in a young population of Italian males. In 1981 several cohorts of young men from specific southern towns were unexpectedly exempted from compulsory military service after a major quake hit the region. Comparisons of exempt cohorts from...

We study the role of human capital in the restructuring of the Italian economy. The share of university graduates in the population has long been far lower in Italy (12 per cent in 2007) that in the rest of Europe (24 per cent). The 3+2 reform of Italian degree programmes has significantly...

The problems of Italy�s education system mostly stem from its modus operandi and interactions with the expectations of families and students. The recent signs of improvement in Italian students� proficiency, plausibly reflecting greater emphasis on rigour, could be reinforced by making...

In this paper we analyze the role played by self-confidence, modeled as beliefs about one�s ability, in shaping task choices. We propose a model in which fully rational agents exploit all the available information to update their beliefs using Bayes� rule, eventually learning their...

The aim of this paper is to estimate the effects of the expansion of tertiary education supply on the educational choices of young Italian high school graduates. A quasi-experimental setting given by the reform of the tertiary education system implemented in 2001 is exploited. The reform was...

We estimate the contemporaneous effect of education on adolescent crime by exploiting the variation in crime rates between different cohorts and at different ages that followed a reform that raised the school-leaving age in Italy. A 1 percentage-point increase of the enrollment rate reduces...

Recent literature has aimed at evaluating human capital externalities by estimating the effect of human capital on wages at urban level. We argue that this methodology might not identify properly human capital spillovers. We consider a general equilibrium model based on Roback (1982) where both...

This paper explores the growth-enhancing role played by heterogeneity in human capital accumulation. It develops a growth model that takes into account more than one mechanism for accumulating human capital; in particular, schooling and on-the-job training are considered. The paper demonstrates...

Both macro and (still scarce) micro evidence support the idea that a new economy is emerging in the US, not (yet) in Europe. Some have argued that the inadequacies of Europe�s financial system are an important part of the explanation. This paper, after surveying the existing literature on...

We investigate the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Italian manufacturing using microdata. We find a positive correlation at firm level between ICT investment, human capital of the labor force and reorganization. Starting from row data, we build a measure of ICT...