Does the Choice of University Matter?

Warwick Economic Research Paper No. 584

42 Pages Posted: 4 Jun 2001

See all articles by Massimiliano Bratti

Massimiliano Bratti

Università degli Studi di Milano - DEAS; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Date Written: February 2001

Abstract

This paper investigates differences across UK universities in 1993 life sciences students' degree performance using individual-level data from the Universities' Statistical Record (USR). Differences across universities are analyzed by specifying and estimating a subject-specific educational production function. Even after including a wide range of controls for the quality of students, significant differences emerge across universities in students' degree performance. We apply a two-stage estimation procedure and find evidence that a large part of "university effects" cannot be explained by the kind of institutional inputs commonly used in the literature on school quality. Finally, we compare the unadjusted ranking of universities based on the proportion of "good" (first and upper second-class honors) degrees awarded with that based on the estimated probability of a "good" degree obtained from the microeconometric model and find significant differences between the two indicators of universities' performance.

JEL Classification: I21, J24

Suggested Citation

Bratti, Massimiliano, Does the Choice of University Matter? (February 2001). Warwick Economic Research Paper No. 584, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=270608 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.270608

Massimiliano Bratti (Contact Author)

Università degli Studi di Milano - DEAS ( email )

Via Conservatorio, 7
I-20122 Milano
Italy

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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