This paper argues that skill formation is a life-cycle process and develops the implications of this insight for Scottish social policy. Families are major producers of skills, and a successful policy needs to promote effective families and to supplement failing ones. We present evidence that...

This paper examines an empirical regularity found in many societies: that family influences on the probability of transiting from one grade level to the next diminish at higher levels of education. We examine the statistical model used to establish the empirical regularity and the intuitive...

In this paper we analyse the decision to continue in post-compulsory education in Italy. Using data from the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) of the Bank of Italy we estimate binary choice models (probit and logit) with the primary aim of investigating factors which affect the...

A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality...

A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality...

We evaluate the Reggio Approach using non-experimental data on individuals from the cities of Reggio Emilia, Parma and Padova belonging to one of five age cohorts: ages 50, 40, 30, 18, and 6 as of 2012. The treated were exposed to municipally offered infant-toddler (ages 0 3) and preschool (ages...

A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality...

Merit requirements in need-based student aid may exacerbate inequality in higher education but at the same time improve efficiency of aid expenditure by increasing on-time graduation, for instance. Disentangling the effect of the two building blocks of student aid ("need" and "merit") is...

In this paper we investigate the effect of the restructuring of university studies that took place in Italy after the introduction of the "3+2" reform on student time allocation and performance. We use data from an Economics Faculty and propensity score matching, which allow us to account for...

[ITALIANO] In questo paper viene analizzata la decisione di proseguire gli studi dopo il completamente della "scuola dell'obbligo" in Italia. Utilizzando i dati dell'Indagine sui Bilanci delle Famiglie Italiane (Banca d'Italia) sono stati stimati dei modelli di scelta binaria (probit e logit) al...