Private School Quality in Italy

29 Pages Posted: 9 Jun 2008

See all articles by Giuseppe Bertola

Giuseppe Bertola

University of Turin - Department of Economics

Daniele Checchi

Università degli Studi di Milano - Dipartimento di Economia Politica e Aziendale (DEPA); IZA Institute of Labor Economics; IRVAPP

Veruska Oppedisano

University of Turin

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 2007

Abstract

We discuss how a schooling system's structure may imply that private school enrolment leads to worse subsequent performance in further education or in the labour market, and we seek evidence of such phenomena in Italian data. If students differ not only in terms of their families' ability to pay but also in terms of their own ability to take advantage of educational opportunities ("talent" for short), theory predicts that private schools attract a worse pool of students when publicly funded schools are better suited to foster progress by more talented students. We analyze empirically three surveys of Italian secondary school graduates, interviewed 3 year after graduation. In these data, the impact of observable talent proxies on educational and labour market outcomes is indeed more positive for students who (endogenously) choose to attend public schools than for those who choose to pay for private education.

Keywords: ability, education, vouchers

JEL Classification: I21, J24

Suggested Citation

Bertola, Giuseppe and Checchi, Daniele and Oppedisano, Veruska, Private School Quality in Italy (December 2007). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP6602, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1140531

Giuseppe Bertola (Contact Author)

University of Turin - Department of Economics ( email )

Lungo Dora Siena 100
Torino, 10153
Italy
+39 011 670 4405 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/gipbert

Daniele Checchi

Università degli Studi di Milano - Dipartimento di Economia Politica e Aziendale (DEPA) ( email )

Milan, 20122
Italy
+39 02 5032 1519 (Phone)
+39 02 5032 1505 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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

IRVAPP ( email )

Via Santa Croce 77
Trento, I-38122
Italy

Veruska Oppedisano

University of Turin ( email )

Via Po 53
Torino, Turin - Piedmont 10100
Italy

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