This paper applies a data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to assess technical efficiency of both private and public universities in Italy. Moving from the traditional context where inputs and outputs are assumed to be non-negative, a directional distance function approach has been applied in...

In this paper, we test whether economic growth depends on human capital development using data disaggregated at territorial level and propose the use of efficiency estimates, measured using a non-parametric technique, as an alternative quality measure of higher education institutions (HEIs). The...

By using a heteroscedastic stochastic frontier model, this paper focuses on how students' exogenous characteristics (such as personal demographic information, pre-enrollment educational background and household economic status) affect faculties’ inefficiency. Using individual data on freshmen...

This work analyses the performance of Italian universities taking into account technical efficiency. The study provides an assessment of levels of technical efficiency taking into account also environmental factors. We focus on the relationship between levels of technical efficiency and...

In this paper, we analyze the higher education choices of Italian secondary school leavers by addressing the roles of university quality, costs and geographical distance to the institution as well as the relationship between students’ choices and their personal and household’s attributes,...

An emerging body of literature examines the economic returns to quality of postsecondary education. This literature has predominantly focused on the returns to the most selective universities. However, less is known about the extent to which these gains are realized for the academically marginal...

The Great Depression is a prime example of a macroeconomic crisis that produced adverse economic and social effects in all spheres of life. The theoretical arguments about the real effects of the Great Depression on education vary. The first is that of economic hardships, which might force...

Portuguese Women in S&T - Abstract Most research based upon institutional data has been dealing with the situation of Portuguese women in Science and Technology as if it would be a homogeneous set. Quite the opposite, whilst women in science are performing increasingly better than men since the...

During the recent decades the higher education system in Portugal has experienced structural changes, including the substantial increase in the number of higher education institutions, scattered throughout the territory, in parallel with the increasing number of students and teachers. Recently,...

This paper investigates the effectiveness of private tutoring in Turkey. The authors introduce their study by providing some background information on the two major national examinations and three different kinds of tutoring. They then describe how they aimed to analyse whether attending private...