The returns to tertiary education in Italy and Europe

In this paper we use the EU-SILC data 2005 to estimate the private rates of return to higher education in 22 European countries. By implementing a Heckman selection model and an instrumental variables estimator we study the effects of schooling on employment and wages and compare them across European countries. Our results show a great deal of heterogeneity in the rate-of-return estimates across countries. Although a clear grouping of countries does not emerges, we observe that the returns to tertiary education appear generally high for Eastern countries and low for Nordic countries whereas the Mediterranean and Continental European countries mostly exhibit an intermediate position