Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/302690 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 17173
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its side effects on the academic achievement of students in a large university located in a northern Italian region severely affected by the pandemic. Thanks to the richness of our data, we can investigate for the first time the role of two specific channels: the increase in study time due to the exceptionally strict confinement measures adopted and the availability of class recordings. We use administrative data on four cohorts of students merged with original survey data. We adopt a fixed-effect difference-in-differences approach, where we compare the outcomes of students from different enrolment cohorts observed in the same semester of their academic career before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. We find a generalized positive effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on students' academic achievement in terms of both earned credits and GPA. We provide evidence that both increased study time and the availability of class recordings contributed to mediating this positive effect.
Subjects: 
COVID-19
university education
distance learning
study time
JEL: 
I23
I24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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