The long-lasting effects of school entry age: Evidence from Italian students

Using data for 9, 13 and 15-year-old students from three different datasets (PIRLS-2006, TIMSS-2007 and PISA-2009), we investigate whether the age at school entry affects children school performance at the fourth, eighth and tenth grade levels. Since student's age in a grade may be endogenous, we use an instrumental variable estimation strategy exploiting the exogenous variations in the month of birth coupled with the entry school cut-off date. We find that younger children score substantially lower than older peers at the fourth, the eighth and the tenth grade. The advantage of older students does not dissipate as they grow older. We do not find any significant effect of the relative age of a child with respect to the classmates’ age. Finally, we show that secondary school students are more likely to be tracked in more academic schools rather than in vocational schools if they are born in the early months of the year. From a policy point of view our results suggest that it might be useful to postpone the entry at school of children, or at least pupils should be prevented to anticipate the age of their entry at school. Tracking should also be delayed.     

Stay at Home! Governance Quality and Effectiveness of Lockdown

Social Indicators Research - In order to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the first wave of the pandemic numerous countries decided to adopt lockdown policies. It had been a...     

Concepts and Methods Involved in the Last Revision of Italy's GDP

ABSTRACT: The general revision of Italy's national economic accounts set out by ISTAT in 1987 was originated by two main factors: the structural changes of the economy detected by the 1981-82 censuses and through surveys on labour force, the internal offer and demand as a whole, and the need to include the typical activities of the underground economy widespread in Italy into the national accounts. The GDP has been adjusted partly according to the improvement of normal statistical sources in collecting data on the production and circulation of goods and services, especially those deriving from small establishments, and partly from statistical research covering the contributions of activities of clandestine immigrants in Italy, second jobs and minor legal activities in the underground economy. Finally, a breakdown of value added by type of economy (the regular and the parallel) is presented. The presumed extent of the parallel economy is estimated for the year 1982 up to 19-20|X% of GDP.