Policy responses to COVID-19 and the efficiency of Italian universities. Tommaso Agasisti (PoliMi)
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian government increased public support for universities. While this influx of financial resources can partially mitigate some negative impacts of the pandemic on outputs, it also significantly increases inputs and costs for universities, potentially leading to a temporary loss of efficiency. This paper examines the policy effect of increased funding on universities’ efficiency in Italy. By focusing on both production and cost efficiency, we use a panel dataset spanning five years (2017–2021) and employ the recently developed Generalized True Random Effect stochastic frontier model. This model allows us to decompose overall inefficiency into persistent and transient components while accounting for heterogeneity across institutions. Our findings reveal that while pro- duction efficiency has remained relatively stable over the years, the post-COVID-19 era is characterized by a statistically significant decrease in cost efficiency. This result indicates a reversal of the positive efficiency trend observed in Italian universities in the years immediately prior to this period. Moreover, we identify a homogeneous reduction in cost efficiency across geographic regions, suggesting that the negative effect is unrelated to specific initial conditions or management decisions in the short run.
Guest Speakers
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Tommaso Agasisti - Relatore ospiteTommaso Agasisti is Full Professor at Politecnico di Milano School of Management, where he teaches Business Economics as well as Public Management. His research interests deal with the performance evaluation and innovation of public organizations, with a special attention to schools, universities and local governments. Specifically, he is an expert in efficiency analyses conducted with parametric and non-parametric methods. With his research group, he also works on policy evaluation, by means of econometric, statistical and machine learning methods applied to a variety of public management issues, such as the prediction of schools and students at-risk, the effectiveness of financial education programs, the effect of public expenditure on economic growth, the impact of managerial practices on organizations’ performance. He authored more than 130 publications, which appeared in international, peer-reviewed academic journals and in international books. Moreover, he disseminated his research through books for the Italian audience. He is a member of the Governing Board of Politecnico di Milano (2019-2024). He is part of the Executive Committee of the PoliMI GSOM - Graduate School of Management since 2014. Between 2010 and 2019, he sat in the Evaluation Committee of various public and private Italian universities. He actively collaborate with policy makers and serve with consultancy and institutional roles in public sector institutions, such as the European Commission, the Italian Ministry of Education and INVALSI (the Italian Evaluation Committee for the Educational System).
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