Equality of Opportunity and Efficiency in Tertiary Education: a Data-Driven Perspective

Fabio Farella ()
Additional contact information
Fabio Farella: University of Bari

No 02-2025, SERIES from Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza - Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro"

Abstract: This paper examines the evolution of inequality of opportunity (EIOp) and the efficiency of public spending in tertiary education across 31 countries using European Social Survey data for 2010, 2018, and 2023. EIOp is estimated using the conditional inference forests (CIFs) algorithm, with model accuracy assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC). A two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) assesses the efficiency of public spending in tertiary education. The findings indicate a general post-COVID-19 decline in EIOp, while cross-country disparities persist. Moreover, for the overall country sample, it would be theoretically possible to reduce the Dissimilarity index of inequality of opportunity, adjusted for the share of tertiary graduates, by 31% in 2010 and 22% in 2018 with current resource levels. A Tobit regression explores exogenous factors associated with efficiency scores. The results are robust to a set of sensitivity analyses and offer a benchmark for policymakers seeking to enhance both fairness and efficiency in higher education.

Keywords: inequality of opportunity; tertiary education; machine learning; two-stage DEA; public spending (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 D63 H52 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 277
Date: 2025-05, Revised 2025-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.seriesworkingpapers.it/RePEc/bai/series/SERIES_WP_02-2025.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bai:series:series_wp_02-2025

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SERIES from Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza - Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro" Largo Abbazia S. Scolastica, 53 - 70124 - Bari - ITALY. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Annalisa Vinella ().