This paper tests whether the academic achievement is a significant determinant of the employment status in the Italian labor market: are the new entrepreneurs selected from the top or bottom end of the graduates ability distribution? Is the cream of the graduate crop pulled into selfemployment...

We investigate gender differences among Italian self employed graduates focusing on flow data from a ten-year labor market transition matrix (1993-2003). Our data show that tertiary education increases the share of self employment in total employment for male workers but reduces the share for...

Purpose: To investigate the gender impact of tertiary education on the probability of entering and remaining in self employment. Design/methodology/approach: We exploit a data set on labour market flows produced by the Italian National Statistical Office by interviewing about 62,000 graduate and...