Lessons

Abstract

AbstractThe book’s main take is that meritocracy is fundamental to economic prosperity, especially when a country needs to switch from imitation-led growth to endogenous frontier growth: ‘No Silicon Valley without Stanford University’. It is challenging for a country without excellent research to change from imitation to endogenous frontier innovation. The book shows how and why meritocracy was left out of Italian universities in favour of a semi-feudal system based on personal loyalty to the ‘barons’ who dominate the field. According to the anti-meritocratic egalitarian culture that has prevailed since the 1970s, money should not reward the best departments but help the laggard to catch up. To the critics of meritocracy, the book points out that there is more social mobility in the USA than in Italy: the offspring of a family in which neither parent has attained a high-school degree has a 6 per cent probability of obtaining a university degree, one of the lowest in the OECD. Instead, they have a 64 per cent probability of attaining only a lower secondary degree or less; this number is a record, in the sense that it is the highest in the OECD, except for Turkey. In the USA, the equivalent numbers are 13 per cent (more than twice as much as Italy) and 28 per cent (less than half as much as Italy). In light of these numbers, it is difficult to argue that Ivy League-plus universities are the killer of equal opportunity. On the contrary, they are likely to contribute to equal opportunities.