We investigate the impact of external differentiation and vocational orientation of (lower and upper) secondary education on country variation in the mean numeracy skills of, and skills gaps between, adults with low and intermediate formal qualifications. We use data on 30- to 44-year-olds in 18 countries from the 2011-12 round of the Program for…

Background: Given the severity of outcomes associated with involvement in bullying and the resources spent in an effort to reduce its prevalence, it is important to investigate trends in the bullying's occurrence. The main aim of this study was to identify trends from 2002 to 2010 in prevalence of bullying and victimization among Italian…

We use a natural experiment to show that the presence of an external examiner has both a direct and an indirect negative effect on the performance of monitored classes in standardized educational tests. The direct effect is the difference in the test performance between classes of the same school with and without external examiners. The indirect…

The article investigates the transitions of graduates of a middle-sized Italian university into the provincial labour market. University of Perugia administrative information and data from the job centres in the province are matched to reconstruct the timing of the university-to-work transitions of graduates since January 2004 to July 2009. Cox…

Lynn (2010) suggests that differences in average intelligence explain many of the differences observed across the Italian regions. This paper puts forward a methodological critique to his study, coupling it with an empirical test showing that Lynn's analysis is not sufficiently robust to support its conclusions. (Contains 2 tables.)

Five studies document the validity of a new 8-item scale designed to measure "positivity," defined as the tendency to view life and experiences with a positive outlook. In the first study (N = 372), the psychometric properties of Positivity Scale (P Scale) were examined in accordance with classical test theory using a large number of…

Beraldo (2010) and Cornoldi, Belacchi, Giofre, Martini, and Tressoldi (2010) (CBGMT) have eight criticisms of my paper (Lynn, 2010) claiming that the large north-south differences in per capita income in Italy are attributable to differences in the average levels of intelligence in the populations. CBGMT give results for seven data sets for IQs in…

Working with data from the PISA study (OECD, 2007), Lynn (2010) has argued that individuals from South Italy average an IQ approximately 10 points lower than individuals from North Italy, and has gone on to put forward a series of conclusions on the relationship between average IQ, latitude, average stature, income, etc. The present paper…

The calculation of composite indicators and the derivation of respective rankings is a common method used to benchmark countries or regions. However, although the statistical robustness of these rankings is often criticised, they often still spark off heated political debate. Here, we assess the sensitivity of the province ranking published by the…