Exploring issues of efficiency in Italian universities

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 08:58:00 GMT

We were delighted to host Professor Tommaso Agasisti from Politecnico di Milano School of Management (Italy) this December. Professor Agasisti was invited to present the research seminar 'Evaluating the efficiency of Italian public universities'.

Using state of the art econometric methods, he demonstrated that efficiency in higher education has been boosted in areas where market forces have been more prevalent. This provides support for the Italian government’s policy of encouraging increasing competition in higher education. Further exploration of the results revealed a North-South divide with universities in the north typically being more efficient than those in the South. The implication of this is that national-level policies to improve efficiency of universities in Italy are likely to be less effective than specific interventions targeting universities in the South of the country.

In times of austerity, it is important that government money allocated to public sector organisations such as universities should be used as efficiently as possible. This talk by Professor Agasisti was therefore particularly timely and interesting. The seminar formed part of a two-day visit by Professor Agasisti who is working on research in education economics with Professor Jill Johnes of the Business School.

Professor Agasisti’s seminar can be viewed below: