Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight the pivotal role of overeducation in explaining the unexplained part of the gender pay gap (GPG), i.e. the component usually attributed to gender discrimination in the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a...

This paper analyzes the effect of public-contest recruitment on earnings by applying an extended version of the Oaxaca-Blinder model with double selection to microdata on Italy. We find that the gender pay gap vanishes among public-contest selected employees, and even reverses in favor of women...

We consider the academic performance of Italian university graduates and their labour market position three years after graduation. Our data show that female students outperform male students in academia but are overcome in the labour market. Assuming that academic competition is fair and that...

This paper addresses the gender pay gap among Italian university graduates on entry to the labour market and stresses the importance of gender stereotypes on subjective assessment of individual productivity. Our data show that in contexts where the stereotype is most likely to occur, the...

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...

Italian university system was reformed in 2001. This paper tests the screening role of degree scores for 2004-Italian graduates. We find support of the strong screening hypothesis for prereform type degrees, while we do not find any evidence of signalling effects for post-reform 3-years degrees....

We analyse the academic performance of Italian students who graduated in 2004, and their occupational status and earnings in 2007. We find that the educational and occupational performances of male and female students do differ: girls outperform boys in academic achievement, but male graduates...

So far, little work has been done on directly estimating differences of wage gaps. Stud- ies estimating pay differentials, generally compare them across different subsamples. This comparison does not allow to conduct any inference or, in the case of decompositions, to confront the respective...

This paper analyzes the effect of public-contest recruitment on earnings for men and women using Italian microdata over a time period of ten years. We find that the gender pay gap vanishes and even reverses among the young, when employees are selected through public contests. The results suggest...