Tommaso Agasisti
Biographic Data
| ID | 338079 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tommaso Agasisti |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tommaso |
| FAMILY NAME | Agasisti |
| SIGNATURE | AGASISTI T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Politecnico di Milano |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8146-3079 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 71 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Financial literacy calls the roll — The effectiveness of a financial education program in Italian schools
This paper evaluates the effectiveness of “Financial Education in School”, a comprehensive financial education program implemented by the Bank of Italy across primary and secondary schools nationwide. The initiative combines teacher training, tailored educational materials, and interactive classroom activities to embed financial literacy into the curriculum. Drawing on two randomized controlled trials with more than 1500 students in grades 5 and …
Urban mobility and learning: Analyzing the influence of commuting time on students' GPA at Politecnico di Milano
Despite its crucial role in students' daily lives, commuting time remains an underexplored dimension in higher education research. To address this gap, this study focuses on challenges that students face in urban environments and investigates the impact of commuting time on the Grade Point Average (GPA) of first-year bachelor students of Politecnico di Milano, Italy. This research employs an innovative two-step methodology. In the initial phase, …
A global perspective on school leadership: Evidence from a latent class analysis on OECD Talis data
Previous research highlighted the existence of multiple educational leadership styles; however, evidence on their multidimensional application is limited. The current study defines an innovative cross-national classification for school leaders along the two dimensions of instructional and distributed leadership. We apply a three-step Latent Class Analysis to transnationally generalizable Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Tea…
Higher education and economic development: A bibliometric analysis 1985–2022
The economic impact of resource investments into higher education has been the focus of considerable research in recent years. Many contributions analyse the strength of the connection between economic development and higher education at the local level and the conditions which make certain systems more effective and efficient than others. In this paper, we provide a systematic bibliometric review of the available literature on the subject, vario…
Drivers of school choice: Primary school selection in a free choice context
In Italy, parents are free to choose the primary school for their children without restrictions imposed by catchment areas. This freedom of choice, inspired by quasi‐market mechanisms, aims to foster competition between schools and raise educational standards. Analysing the case of Milan using regression models and administrative data for the 2015–16 school year, we study the factors associated with the probability that parents choose a school di…
Predicting dropout in Higher Education across borders
Study success in Higher Education is of primary importance in the European policy agenda. Yet, given the diverse educational landscape across countries and institutions, more coordinated action is needed to gain a more solid knowledge of the dropout phenomenon. This study aims to gain a better insight into students’ dropout based on an integrated comparative study of two universities located in two different European countries: Politecnico di Mil…
The heterogeneity of Covid-19 learning loss across Italian primary and middle schools
This paper investigates the heterogeneous impact of school closures during Covid-19 pandemic in Italy on academic performance across different schools, grades, subjects and groups of students. Our analysis utilises an innovative dataset that combines administrative data on standardised tests in grades 5 and 8 with a specifically-designed survey that collects information about teachers' practices between February and June 2020. Firstly, by employi…
Online or on-campus? Analysing the effects of financial education on student knowledge gain
Technological resources, ICT use and schools efficiency in Latin America – Insights from OECD Pisa 2018
The efficiency of schools can be defined and measured as the ratio between the outputs produced (for example, achievement and competences) and the inputs utilized (human and technical resources). Technology holds the promise of increasing the efficiency of schools’ operations, although empirical evidence on this is still scarce. This paper explores whether the ICT availability and use in 2757 schools from 10 Latin American countries are associate…
Exploring e-maturity in Italian local governments: Empirical results from a three-step latent class analysis
This article undertakes a quantitative and holistic approach to frame a model of e-maturity in local governments, defined as the extent to which technologies permeate public service delivery. Moreover, the study adds evidence on the performance associated with different levels of e-maturity. In so doing, we collect survey data from 814 Italian local governments and integrate it with secondary sources. We propose a new angle for assessing e-maturi…
Actual Autonomy, Efficiency and Performance of Universities: Insights from the Russian Case
This paper studies the relationship between university institutional autonomy (both formal and informal) and their performance and efficiency using multi-stage empirical methodology. First, we measure an “autonomy-in-use” index, and then we employ Data Envelopment Analysis in order to evaluate institutional efficiency. Lastly, we use a panel fixed effect regression to provide robust evidence for the relationship between institutional autonomy, pe…
Introduction to the Special Issue on Public Administration in Education
The efficiency of Brazilian elementary public schools
Early-predicting dropout of university students: An Application of Innovative Multilevel Machine Learning and Statistical Techniques
This paper combines a theoretical-based model with a data-driven approach to develop an Early Warning System that detects students who are more likely to dropout. The model uses innovative multilevel statistical and machine learning methods. The paper demonstrates the validity of the approach by applying it to administrative data from a leading Italian university
Tâches, professions et salaires dans les pays de l'Ocde
Les auteurs examinent la relation entre les gains, le capital humain et les tâches. Ils reprennent le modèle théorique d'Autor et Handel (2013), tout en élargissant l'analyse empirique à 21 pays, grâce aux données de l'enquête de l'OCDE sur les compétences des adultes (PIAAC). Celles‐ci permettent en outre de caractériser plus précisément le capital humain des travailleurs, en fournissant une mesure directe des compétences cognitives. L'analyse e…
Evaluating the higher education productivity of Chinese and European “elite” universities using a meta-frontier approach
This research focuses on a sample of European and Chinese elite universities for the period 2011–2015. We adopt a meta-frontier methodology to decompose their overall productivity in three main determinants: (1) technical efficiency compared with contemporaneous technology, (2) change in technical efficiency and (3) technology relative superiority of the two groups of universities. The results reveal different patterns of evolution: Chinese insti…
Higher education in troubled times: On the impact of Covid-19 in Italy
The paper revisits the outbreak of Covid-19 in Italy and particularly in Lombardy region, the first and initially most severely affected area among western countries. First, we provide an overview of the impact of the pandemic in the country and in the region, mentioning the turning points and the main effects on the national and local economy. Second, we focus on the impact in the educational sector, by describing an overview of the university’s…
Can grants affect student performance? Evidence from five Italian universities
This paper assesses the effect of need-based grants on the performance of university students in Italy. We performed a series of between-universities and within-universities propensity score matching analyses to evaluate the effect of grants on several student performance indicators, such as dropout rate, first year credits and efficiency of study. Our findings suggest that financial aid has a positive, substantial and statistically robust effect…
What School Factors are Associated with the Success of Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Students? An Empirical Investigation Using Pisa Data
Many school-level policies, such as school funding formulae and teacher allocation mechanisms, aim at reducing the influence of students' low socio-economic condition on academic achievement. Benchmarks and indicators based on large-scale international assessments can be used to measure academic success and identify if and when disadvantaged students are successful. We build on such work and develop a new method for identifying a cross-country co…
School principals' managerial behaviours and students' achievement: An empirical analysis of Italian middle schools
Purpose This research investigates the impact of managerial practices implemented by Italian school principals on students' outcomes, using micro-data provided by the National Evaluation Committee for Education (INVALSI) for 2013/14 school year. Design/methodology/approach Employing an educational production function, the authors regress a set of student and school's characteristics, enriched by information from a questionnaire filled by school p…
School Choice and Privatization: A Review of Education and the Commercial Mindset (2016)
Internal quality assurance in universities: Does NPM matter
Following the ideas of New Public Management, Quality Assurance (QA) practices have become a relevant concern for public organizations. In the Higher Education sector, QA policies have inspired different reforms, becoming a debated issue for universities’ leaders and policy-makers. This article analyzes the implementation of a newly defined committee for quality assurance (QAC) within Italian universities in order to identify if, as happened in o…
Comparing the Efficiency of Schools Through International Benchmarking: Results From an Empirical Analysis of OECD Pisa 2012 Data
This paper derives efficiency scores for around 8,500 schools in 30 countries, using Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data and a nonparametric approach called data envelopment analysis as method. On average, achievement scores of schools can be increased by 27%, holding inputs constant. Efficiency scores vary considerably both between and within countries; the role of managerial efficiency and structural differences due to oper…
Big data and the measurement of public organizations’ performance and efficiency: The state-of-the-art
The increasing availability of statistical data raises opportunities for ‘big’ data and learning analytics. Here, we review the academic literature and research relating to the use of big data analytics in the public sector, and its contribution to public organizations’ performance and efficiency. We outline the advantages as well as the limitations of using big data in public sector organizations and identify research gaps in recent studies and …
Equality of Educational Opportunities, Schools' Characteristics and Resilient Students: An Empirical Study of EU-15 Countries Using OECD-Pisa 2009 Data
Governance models of university systems—towards quasi‐markets? Tendencies and perspectives: A European comparison
The results of an in-depth study into the university systems of the main countries of the European Union are presented in this paper. The objective is to define theoretical models of the market forms of university education and to apply them in a comparative international study. The analysis shows a general tendency to organise these systems according to ‘managed competition’ mechanisms in which the state plays a role in financing the system and …
Equality of Educational Opportunities, Schools' Characteristics and Resilient Students: An Empirical Study of EU-15 Countries Using OECD-Pisa 2009 Data
What School Factors are Associated with the Success of Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Students? An Empirical Investigation Using Pisa Data
Many school-level policies, such as school funding formulae and teacher allocation mechanisms, aim at reducing the influence of students' low socio-economic condition on academic achievement. Benchmarks and indicators based on large-scale international assessments can be used to measure academic success and identify if and when disadvantaged students are successful. We build on such work and develop a new method for identifying a cross-country co…
Big data and the measurement of public organizations’ performance and efficiency: The state-of-the-art
The increasing availability of statistical data raises opportunities for ‘big’ data and learning analytics. Here, we review the academic literature and research relating to the use of big data analytics in the public sector, and its contribution to public organizations’ performance and efficiency. We outline the advantages as well as the limitations of using big data in public sector organizations and identify research gaps in recent studies and …
Higher education in troubled times: On the impact of Covid-19 in Italy
The paper revisits the outbreak of Covid-19 in Italy and particularly in Lombardy region, the first and initially most severely affected area among western countries. First, we provide an overview of the impact of the pandemic in the country and in the region, mentioning the turning points and the main effects on the national and local economy. Second, we focus on the impact in the educational sector, by describing an overview of the university’s…
Internal quality assurance in universities: Does NPM matter
Following the ideas of New Public Management, Quality Assurance (QA) practices have become a relevant concern for public organizations. In the Higher Education sector, QA policies have inspired different reforms, becoming a debated issue for universities’ leaders and policy-makers. This article analyzes the implementation of a newly defined committee for quality assurance (QAC) within Italian universities in order to identify if, as happened in o…
Benchmarking universities' efficiency indicators in the presence of internal heterogeneity
When benchmarking its performance, a university is usually considered as a single strategic unit. According to the evidence, however, lower levels within an organisation (such as faculties, departments and schools) play a significant role in institutional governance, affecting the overall performance. In this article, an empirical analysis was carried out to obtain the teaching efficiency scores of the different schools belonging to 12 universiti…
Comparing the Efficiency of Schools Through International Benchmarking: Results From an Empirical Analysis of OECD Pisa 2012 Data
This paper derives efficiency scores for around 8,500 schools in 30 countries, using Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data and a nonparametric approach called data envelopment analysis as method. On average, achievement scores of schools can be increased by 27%, holding inputs constant. Efficiency scores vary considerably both between and within countries; the role of managerial efficiency and structural differences due to oper…
Efficiency, costs, rankings and heterogeneity: The case of US higher education
Among the major trends in the higher education (HE) sector, the development of rankings as a policy and managerial tool is of particular relevance. However, despite the diffusion of these instruments, it is still not clear how they relate with traditional performance measures, like unit costs and efficiency scores. In this paper, we estimate a variety of models to evaluate costs in US higher education institutions. A particularly innovative featu…
Early-predicting dropout of university students: An Application of Innovative Multilevel Machine Learning and Statistical Techniques
This paper combines a theoretical-based model with a data-driven approach to develop an Early Warning System that detects students who are more likely to dropout. The model uses innovative multilevel statistical and machine learning methods. The paper demonstrates the validity of the approach by applying it to administrative data from a leading Italian university
Can grants affect student performance? Evidence from five Italian universities
This paper assesses the effect of need-based grants on the performance of university students in Italy. We performed a series of between-universities and within-universities propensity score matching analyses to evaluate the effect of grants on several student performance indicators, such as dropout rate, first year credits and efficiency of study. Our findings suggest that financial aid has a positive, substantial and statistically robust effect…
From Brain Drain to Knowledge Transfer: Experiences of the Italian Academe
Massification, the pressures of accountability, competition to attract the best local and international students, worldwide quality rankings and difficulties in attracting and retaining and researchers are challenges faced by tertiary eduction sectors in many countries (Altbach et al., 2012).The Italian tertiary education sector is no different.A consideration of some of the issues and challenges that the Italian tertiary education sector faces p…
Perceived’ competition and performance in Italian secondary schools: New evidence from OECD—Pisa 2006
In this paper, we investigate the effects of competition on the performance of Italian secondary schools as measured by maths achievement scores (PISA 2006 dataset). Competition is measured by an indicator of ‘perceived’ competition (generated from an answer provided by the schools’ principals). The methodology employed is a propensity score matching that is corrected to take into account heteroskedasticity and finite sample bias. The results sho…
Predicting dropout in Higher Education across borders
Study success in Higher Education is of primary importance in the European policy agenda. Yet, given the diverse educational landscape across countries and institutions, more coordinated action is needed to gain a more solid knowledge of the dropout phenomenon. This study aims to gain a better insight into students’ dropout based on an integrated comparative study of two universities located in two different European countries: Politecnico di Mil…
Technological resources, ICT use and schools efficiency in Latin America – Insights from OECD Pisa 2018
The efficiency of schools can be defined and measured as the ratio between the outputs produced (for example, achievement and competences) and the inputs utilized (human and technical resources). Technology holds the promise of increasing the efficiency of schools’ operations, although empirical evidence on this is still scarce. This paper explores whether the ICT availability and use in 2757 schools from 10 Latin American countries are associate…
Exploring e-maturity in Italian local governments: Empirical results from a three-step latent class analysis
This article undertakes a quantitative and holistic approach to frame a model of e-maturity in local governments, defined as the extent to which technologies permeate public service delivery. Moreover, the study adds evidence on the performance associated with different levels of e-maturity. In so doing, we collect survey data from 814 Italian local governments and integrate it with secondary sources. We propose a new angle for assessing e-maturi…
Grants in Italian university: A Look at the Heterogeneity of Their Impact on Students' Performances
In this paper, we estimate the effect of receiving financial aid for a cohort of students who enrolled at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in the year 2007/2008, through a propensity score matching approach. Using administrative data about these students for four years, the impact of the financial aid on several dimensions of academic performance was evaluated: formative credits obtained after one year, dropout probability in the first and second ye…
Governance models of university systems—towards quasi‐markets? Tendencies and perspectives: A European comparison
The results of an in-depth study into the university systems of the main countries of the European Union are presented in this paper. The objective is to define theoretical models of the market forms of university education and to apply them in a comparative international study. The analysis shows a general tendency to organise these systems according to ‘managed competition’ mechanisms in which the state plays a role in financing the system and …
Is expenditure on higher education per student converging across EU-15 countries
This article examines the trend in expenditure per student at higher education institutions in the EU-15 countries, during the period 1998–2006. The results show that there was a tendency towards convergence (as measured by sigma and beta convergence analysis). The ratio of convergence is higher after 2001, suggesting that the implementation of European-level policies (e.g. the Bologna Declaration and the Lisbon Strategy) had an impact not only i…
Efficiency and heterogeneity of public spending in education among Italian regions
The Italian educational system is strictly regulated by the Ministry of Education. However, there are strong differences in educational inputs and outputs among regions, as can be noticed by analysing the allocation of public budgets to the regions and their students' (average) performance in national and international test scores. A general institutional change is ongoing in Italy, that is, the decentralisation of competencies from the State to …
Perceived’ competition and performance in Italian secondary schools: New evidence from OECD—Pisa 2006
In this paper, we investigate the effects of competition on the performance of Italian secondary schools as measured by maths achievement scores (PISA 2006 dataset). Competition is measured by an indicator of ‘perceived’ competition (generated from an answer provided by the schools’ principals). The methodology employed is a propensity score matching that is corrected to take into account heteroskedasticity and finite sample bias. The results sho…
From Brain Drain to Knowledge Transfer: Experiences of the Italian Academe
Massification, the pressures of accountability, competition to attract the best local and international students, worldwide quality rankings and difficulties in attracting and retaining and researchers are challenges faced by tertiary eduction sectors in many countries (Altbach et al., 2012).The Italian tertiary education sector is no different.A consideration of some of the issues and challenges that the Italian tertiary education sector faces p…
Benchmarking universities' efficiency indicators in the presence of internal heterogeneity
When benchmarking its performance, a university is usually considered as a single strategic unit. According to the evidence, however, lower levels within an organisation (such as faculties, departments and schools) play a significant role in institutional governance, affecting the overall performance. In this article, an empirical analysis was carried out to obtain the teaching efficiency scores of the different schools belonging to 12 universiti…
Efficiency, costs, rankings and heterogeneity: The case of US higher education
Among the major trends in the higher education (HE) sector, the development of rankings as a policy and managerial tool is of particular relevance. However, despite the diffusion of these instruments, it is still not clear how they relate with traditional performance measures, like unit costs and efficiency scores. In this paper, we estimate a variety of models to evaluate costs in US higher education institutions. A particularly innovative featu…
School factors helping disadvantaged students to succeed: Empirical evidence from four Italian cities
This research investigates a particular category of disadvantaged students, namely those who are able to overcome a situation of socio-economical disadvantage and obtain good academic results (here named ‘resilient students’). We have used micro-data provided by the Italian National Evaluation Committee for Education and focused on class and school-level characteristics that help disadvantaged students to become resilient students when they move …
Grants in Italian university: A Look at the Heterogeneity of Their Impact on Students' Performances
In this paper, we estimate the effect of receiving financial aid for a cohort of students who enrolled at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in the year 2007/2008, through a propensity score matching approach. Using administrative data about these students for four years, the impact of the financial aid on several dimensions of academic performance was evaluated: formative credits obtained after one year, dropout probability in the first and second ye…
Big data and the measurement of public organizations’ performance and efficiency: The state-of-the-art
The increasing availability of statistical data raises opportunities for ‘big’ data and learning analytics. Here, we review the academic literature and research relating to the use of big data analytics in the public sector, and its contribution to public organizations’ performance and efficiency. We outline the advantages as well as the limitations of using big data in public sector organizations and identify research gaps in recent studies and …
Equality of Educational Opportunities, Schools' Characteristics and Resilient Students: An Empirical Study of EU-15 Countries Using OECD-Pisa 2009 Data
Comparing the Efficiency of Schools Through International Benchmarking: Results From an Empirical Analysis of OECD Pisa 2012 Data
This paper derives efficiency scores for around 8,500 schools in 30 countries, using Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data and a nonparametric approach called data envelopment analysis as method. On average, achievement scores of schools can be increased by 27%, holding inputs constant. Efficiency scores vary considerably both between and within countries; the role of managerial efficiency and structural differences due to oper…
School Choice and Privatization: A Review of Education and the Commercial Mindset (2016)
Internal quality assurance in universities: Does NPM matter
Following the ideas of New Public Management, Quality Assurance (QA) practices have become a relevant concern for public organizations. In the Higher Education sector, QA policies have inspired different reforms, becoming a debated issue for universities’ leaders and policy-makers. This article analyzes the implementation of a newly defined committee for quality assurance (QAC) within Italian universities in order to identify if, as happened in o…
School principals' managerial behaviours and students' achievement: An empirical analysis of Italian middle schools
Purpose This research investigates the impact of managerial practices implemented by Italian school principals on students' outcomes, using micro-data provided by the National Evaluation Committee for Education (INVALSI) for 2013/14 school year. Design/methodology/approach Employing an educational production function, the authors regress a set of student and school's characteristics, enriched by information from a questionnaire filled by school p…
Tâches, professions et salaires dans les pays de l'Ocde
Les auteurs examinent la relation entre les gains, le capital humain et les tâches. Ils reprennent le modèle théorique d'Autor et Handel (2013), tout en élargissant l'analyse empirique à 21 pays, grâce aux données de l'enquête de l'OCDE sur les compétences des adultes (PIAAC). Celles‐ci permettent en outre de caractériser plus précisément le capital humain des travailleurs, en fournissant une mesure directe des compétences cognitives. L'analyse e…
Evaluating the higher education productivity of Chinese and European “elite” universities using a meta-frontier approach
This research focuses on a sample of European and Chinese elite universities for the period 2011–2015. We adopt a meta-frontier methodology to decompose their overall productivity in three main determinants: (1) technical efficiency compared with contemporaneous technology, (2) change in technical efficiency and (3) technology relative superiority of the two groups of universities. The results reveal different patterns of evolution: Chinese insti…
Higher education in troubled times: On the impact of Covid-19 in Italy
The paper revisits the outbreak of Covid-19 in Italy and particularly in Lombardy region, the first and initially most severely affected area among western countries. First, we provide an overview of the impact of the pandemic in the country and in the region, mentioning the turning points and the main effects on the national and local economy. Second, we focus on the impact in the educational sector, by describing an overview of the university’s…
Can grants affect student performance? Evidence from five Italian universities
This paper assesses the effect of need-based grants on the performance of university students in Italy. We performed a series of between-universities and within-universities propensity score matching analyses to evaluate the effect of grants on several student performance indicators, such as dropout rate, first year credits and efficiency of study. Our findings suggest that financial aid has a positive, substantial and statistically robust effect…
What School Factors are Associated with the Success of Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Students? An Empirical Investigation Using Pisa Data
Many school-level policies, such as school funding formulae and teacher allocation mechanisms, aim at reducing the influence of students' low socio-economic condition on academic achievement. Benchmarks and indicators based on large-scale international assessments can be used to measure academic success and identify if and when disadvantaged students are successful. We build on such work and develop a new method for identifying a cross-country co…
Actual Autonomy, Efficiency and Performance of Universities: Insights from the Russian Case
This paper studies the relationship between university institutional autonomy (both formal and informal) and their performance and efficiency using multi-stage empirical methodology. First, we measure an “autonomy-in-use” index, and then we employ Data Envelopment Analysis in order to evaluate institutional efficiency. Lastly, we use a panel fixed effect regression to provide robust evidence for the relationship between institutional autonomy, pe…
Introduction to the Special Issue on Public Administration in Education
The efficiency of Brazilian elementary public schools
Early-predicting dropout of university students: An Application of Innovative Multilevel Machine Learning and Statistical Techniques
This paper combines a theoretical-based model with a data-driven approach to develop an Early Warning System that detects students who are more likely to dropout. The model uses innovative multilevel statistical and machine learning methods. The paper demonstrates the validity of the approach by applying it to administrative data from a leading Italian university
The heterogeneity of Covid-19 learning loss across Italian primary and middle schools
This paper investigates the heterogeneous impact of school closures during Covid-19 pandemic in Italy on academic performance across different schools, grades, subjects and groups of students. Our analysis utilises an innovative dataset that combines administrative data on standardised tests in grades 5 and 8 with a specifically-designed survey that collects information about teachers' practices between February and June 2020. Firstly, by employi…
Economics (25 works) · Political science (21 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Mathematics education (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Economic growth (14 works) · Higher education (13 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Statistics (11 works) · Business (10 works)