Frontiere di competenza, "overeducation" e rendimento economico dell'istruzione nei mercati del lavoro italiani degli anni '90

The paper intends to discuss the measurement of overeducation on the basis of a concept of “minimum educational level” requested for entering different professional positions not independent from experience. The analysis is developed by estimating a skills stochastic frontier model for each professional position. The results show a partial substitution between formal education and experience on the Italian labour markets, even though the requested level of education appears increased for all professional positions from 1993 to 1998. Starting from those results, some earning functions are estimated that show how the overeducation’s return has been significantly lower than the return of requested education during the 1990s.