Agenda

17 Jun 2026 12:15

Giulio Venturini (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)

Meeting Room 1, San Giobbe Economics Campus + online

Giulio Venturini (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) - School Choice and Human Capital Dynamics

Abstract:
Education is a key determinant of labor-market success and social mobility, yet access to high-return educational paths remains unequally distributed. In tracked school systems, upper-secondary school choice shapes university access and later earnings while also reflecting persistent inequalities linked to parental background. Motivated by evidence on under-matching and intergenerational persistence, this paper develops a dynastic model of school choice in which parents choose between an academic and a technical track for their child. Children differ in ability, parents differ in cultural and socioeconomic background, and teacher recommendations determine how much parents learn about child potential. Track choice affects both current welfare and the intergenerational transmission of educational advantage, thereby generating endogenous human-capital dynamics. The model shows how different informational environments generate pooling, sorting by parental background, or sorting by child ability. Without peer effects, the full-information allocation coincides pointwise with the utilitarian planner, but welfare losses under imperfect information reflect both static misallocation and dynamic composition effects through the steady-state distribution of dynasties. A forward-looking fixed-point planner may therefore prefer assignment rules that differ from the decentralized correct-signal allocation. With peer effects, correct information is no longer sufficient for efficiency, since decentralized parents do not internalize peer spillovers.

 

The seminar can be attended also remotely, connecting to ZOOM.

Link Zoom: bit.ly/insem-2425
ID riunione:  880 2639 9452
Passcode: InSem-2425

Language

The event will be held in English

Organized by

Department of Economics (InSeminars)

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