The rise in the average age of women bearing their first child is a well-established demographic trend in recent decades. Postponed childbearing can have important consequences for the mother and, at a macro level, for the country as a whole. Research has focused on the effect postponing...

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...

We exploit presumably exogenous variation in the availability of college-educated workers at the province level produced by a reform that increased the supply of higher education to estimate human capital production externalities for Italian manufacturing firms. We show that when the potential...

Evidence on the role of parental health on child schooling is surprisingly thin. We explore this issue by estimating the short-run effects of parents\' illness on child school enrollment. Our analysis is based on household panel data from Bosnia-Herzegovina, a country whose health and...

Although past research has found strong social class effects on the decision to undertake higher education in the UK, there is only sparse empirical work investigating social class influences on the choice of degree subject at the undergraduate level. Using Universities’ Statistical Record...

In this paper we investigate whether higher education (HE) produces non-pecuniary returns via a reduction in the consumption of health-damaging substances. In particular, the paper focuses on studying the smoking intensity of British individuals. We use data on current smokers from the 1970...

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...

In this paper we aim to remedy some shortcomings in the economic literature on university student absenteeism and academic performance. We start by introducing a simple theoretical model in which students decide the optimal allocation of their time between lecture attendance, self-study and...

In this paper we aim to remedy some shortcomings in the economic literature on university student absenteeism and academic performance. We start by introducing a simple theoretical model in which students decide the optimal allocation of their time between lecture attendance, self-study and...

[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...