L'economia dell'alta formazione

The economic literature has devoted surprisingly little attention to the relationship between 'afterfull- degree' studies and labour market outcomes, compared to the case of secondary and postsecondary education. The aim of this thesis is to shade a light on the characteristics and returns associated to investing in further years of education after a full degree. In fact, the practice of enrolling in extra years of higher education is common in Italy; furthermore it has been strongly incentivised by both national and regional governments. For the analysis, I exploit an unique dataset and the administrative documents relative to the biggest scholarship programs implemented in the regions of Southern Italy. The research question is whether these investments translated into short-term benefits in terms of labour market performance for the funding recipients or whether they simply foster the brain drain. Results - OLS and IV - seem to suggest that both phenomena occurred, even if the latter estimates are weaker. Also, I try to put the emphasis on the 'quality side', by exploiting a policy twist occurred in one of the regional programs: I show that students react to incentive towards attending better institutions, but that they are also responsive to the feature of the selection process itself.