This paper examines the impact of a reform aimed at expediting graduation times in Italian universities by reducing the number of exams students must pass to obtain a fixed number of credits. Using event-study estimates that leverage the reform's staggered implementation, we find that this policy change led to an increase in on-time graduation…

In Italy, parents are free to choose the primary school for their children without restrictions imposed by catchment areas. This freedom of choice, inspired by quasi-market mechanisms, aims to foster competition between schools and raise educational standards. Analysing the case of Milan using regression models and administrative data for the…

Transition metrics, which quantify the propensity for one event to follow another, are often utilized to study sequential patterns of behaviors, emotions, actions, and other states. However, little is known about the conditions in which application of transition metrics is appropriate. We report on two experiments in which we simulated sequences…

The article analyses the effect of gender in professors' career advancement using data on the entire population of professors in the Italian university system, data on the National Scientific Qualification (NSQ) accreditation scheme, and data on scientific productivity (SciVal) for bibliometric scientific sectors. As NSQ accreditation is a…

A more motivating way of introducing students to probability theory is through real-world problems. Since heuristics play an important role in our probabilistic judgement, knowing how to avoid incorrect probabilistic reasoning, which leads to several biases, could help students to develop more critical thinking skills. In this paper, we present a…