Comparing German and Italian Public 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; (ii) the comparison among (similar) European countries can stimulate a benchmarking exercise that can be useful for managerial and policymaking purposes. The results show that German universities are more efficient than their Italian counterparts are, using data envelopment analysis. However, the latter are catching up: in the period 2001-2007, their efficiency has improved more rapidly. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.