Welcome remarks
Prof. Rocco De Nicola - IMT School Rector
Doctoral Theses with International Joint Supervision and Double Degree
Prof. Ennio Bilancini - IMT School
Prof. Anna Sanz-de-Galdeano - University of Alicante
Followed by two presentations:
Gender Asymmetries in Peer Effects at the Workplace
Are there gender asymmetries in peer effects at the workplace? We use Brazilian matched employer-employee data to study whether the ability of peers of the same sex influences individual wages more than the ability of peers of the opposite sex, which would be consistent with economic models of behaviour and interactions that incorporate the psychology and sociology of identity. Both individuals and peers average ability are unobserved, so we estimate them by taking advantage of the panel structure of the data. We also control for workers sorting into peer groups and firms by including multiple fixed effects. We find that same-sex peer effects are remarkably larger (about double) than opposite-sex peer effects in the workplace for both men and women. The estimated wage elasticities with respect to the average ability of same-sex and opposite-sex peers amount to 0.14-0.16 and 0.07-0.08, respectively.
Joint work with Julián Messina and Anastasia Terskaya
Prof. Anna Sanz-de-Galdeano - University of Alicante
The psychological effect of a math signal
This paper tests whether barely obtaining a pass score in at least one of two midterm tests has an effect on subsequent achievement in a Math course. To estimate the effect, we created a novel dataset by linking administrative and survey data on students at a medium size Spanish university and used a regression discontinuity design in which the cutoff is 5, i.e., the pass score in the national grading system. Although obtaining a score just equal to or barely greater than 5 in midterm tests has no immediate consequence for students, it may have a psychological effect by acting as a (de)motivating signal to study and pass the course, with the sign of the effect being unclear ex-ante. We find that obtaining a pass score in at least one midterm has a positive effect on the final exam score. The result seems to be explained by higher students’ motivation when jointly accounting for their effort. Overall, our results suggest that partly unexplored psychological mechanisms may help us deepen our understanding of the determinants of achievement in higher education.
Joint work with Marianna Battaglia and Marcello Sartarelli
Prof. Pedro Albarran - University of Alicante
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