Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of exogenous tourism shocks on the educational choices and on the geographical sorting of workers in Italy. To extract exogenous variation in tourism we implement an instrumental variable strategy using a shift-share measure that leverages shocks to the perceived safety of competing destinations in combination with the distribution of foreign tourists between countries and Italian provinces. We find that tourism inflows decreases college enrollment rates and completions throughout the peninsula, affecting mostly students who would have studied in a college that is located in a provinces outside of their province of residence. Moreover, exposed students tend to choose field of study related to linguistic and communication. We also find that tourism alters migratory flows of workers within Italy, increasing the inflow of low-educated workers and reducing the share of college-educated workers in the province. However, our results show that the tourism sector does not play a primary role in the brain drain affecting the nation but does not favor its recovery.
Keywords: Â tourism, human capital, college enrollment, major choice, geographic sorting.
JEL Codes: I25, J24, L83, Z32.