Academic Dynasties: Decentralization and Familism in the Italian Academia

55 Pages Posted: 4 Nov 2011 Last revised: 8 Jul 2023

See all articles by Ruben Durante

Ruben Durante

National University Singapore; Barcelona School of Economics; IZA; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Giovanna Labartino

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Roberto Perotti

Bocconi University - Department of Economics; European University Institute - Economics Department (ECO); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: November 2011

Abstract

Decentralization can lead to "good" or "bad" outcomes depending on the socio-cultural norms of the targeted communities. We investigate this issue by looking at the evolution of familism and nepotism in the Italian academia before and after the 1998 reform, which decentralized the recruitment of professors from the national to the university level. To capture familism we use a novel dataset on Italian university professors between 1988 and 2008 focusing on the informative content of last names. We construct two indices of "homonymy" which capture the concentration of last names in a given academic department relative to that in the underlying general population. Our results suggest that increased autonomy by local university officials resulted in a significant increase in the incidence of familism in areas characterized by low civic capital but not in areas with higher civic capital.

Suggested Citation

Durante, Ruben and Labartino, Giovanna and Perotti, Roberto, Academic Dynasties: Decentralization and Familism in the Italian Academia (November 2011). NBER Working Paper No. w17572, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1954499

Ruben Durante (Contact Author)

National University Singapore ( email )

HOME PAGE: http://www.rubendurante.net

Barcelona School of Economics ( email )

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Spain

IZA ( email )

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Giovanna Labartino

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

Roberto Perotti

Bocconi University - Department of Economics ( email )

Via Gobbi 5
Milan, 20136
Italy

European University Institute - Economics Department (ECO) ( email )

Villa San Paolo
Via della Piazzuola 43
50133 Florence
Italy

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

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