Socio-institutional determinants of educational resource efficiency according to the capability approach: An endogenous stochastic frontier analysis

Abstract We investigate the role of private and public resources in educational attainments and the socio-institutional determinants of educational resource efficiency in Italy. Following the Sen's capability approach, we consider social capital and the quality of government part of the social conversion factors through which resources can be converted into human capabilities, such as education. We analyze the case of Italy by constructing a new longitudinal dataset from 1993 to 2012, using repeated cross sections from the main social survey of the Italian Statistical Institute and a panel stochastic frontier model that takes into account endogeneity. The results show the relative importance of private resources (measured by an ad hoc constructed wealth index), the complementarity between private wealth and public expenditures on education, and the positive impact of social capital and the quality of government on educational resource efficiency.