Comparing German and Italian Universities: Convergence or Divergence in the Higher Education Landscape?

In this paper we examine and compare the efficiency of Italian and German public universities and its evolution in the period 2001-2007. This topic is particularly important because of two main reasons: (i) as the universities are funded through public money in both countries, it is necessary to assess whether it has been used efficiently – especially in a period of pressures on public budgets; (ii) the comparison among (similar) European countries can stimulate a benchmarking exercise that can be useful for managerial and policy making purposes. Using data envelopment analysis (DEA) we first derive efficiency scores for higher education institutions in both countries. In a second step, we apply a Tobit regression in order to detect external factors associated with the efficiency of universities. Overall, the results show that German universities are more efficient than their Italian counterparts. However the latter are catching-up: in the period 2001-2007 their efficiency improved more rapidly. Among the external factors, three are statistically related to efficiency: the presence of a medical faculty, the regional unemployment rate, and the regional share of workers employed in science and technology.