In this paper, we study how the birth of the first universities in Italy affected the emergence of the Italian free cities-states (the commune) in the period 1000-1300 a.d. Exploiting a panel dataset of 121 cities, we show that after the foundation of a new university the distance between each...

China has made impressive strides in education in recent decades, even though the accumulation of human capital has lagged behind that of physical capital. Going forward, access to and quality of education will be key to sustain economic convergence with the most advanced economies and to offset...

In this paper, we study how the birth of the first universities in Italy affected the emergence of the Italian free cities-states (the commune) in the period 1000-1300 a.d. Exploiting a panel dataset of 121 cities, we show that after the foundation of a new university the distance between each...

This paper deals with several salient issues about immigrants to the United States and their education. These issues include a comparison of the schooling accomplishments of immigrants and the native-born that emphasizes the considerable diversity in the schooling accomplishments among different...

This paper investigates the impact of trade-induced changes in local economic conditions on individual decisions related to human capital accumulation in the United States. Existing research has found that business cycle and economic fluctuations impact investments in higher education, both...

The lack of human capital in Portugal has become a key obstacle to higher growth. This paper discusses the performance of education and training services in Portugal and shows that improvements are needed to narrow the significant human capital gap with other OECD countries. Despite progress in...

Over the past decades, globalization has led to a huge increase in the migration of workers, as well as students. This paper develops a simple two-step model that describes the decisions of an individual vis-à-vis education and migration, and presents a unified model, wherein the two migration...

Transformation to post-industrial or knowledge-based economies causes changes in the structure of labour markets with growing demand on highly-qualified workforce. In XXI century human capital has become one of the most important production factors determining competitiveness and innovativeness...

The theory of human capital clearly states that the investments into the education bring many benefits and are worth the cost. The OECD Education at a Glance analysis provides support for both public and private investing in tertiary education as the net present value is positive for all...

This paper exploits student-level administrative data on the population of Italian university students from 2006 to 2014 to analyze the effects of high performing (HP) male or female peers on individual academic performance, according to the gender of the student. The identification strategy is...