Resumen de Bologna Process and Expenditure on Higher Education: A Convergence Analysis of the EU-15
Tommaso Agasisti, Carmen Pérez Esparrells, Giuseppe Catalano, Susana Morales
The Bologna Process represents a major example of a political and institutional convergence among Higher Education (HE) policies across European countries. The main fields which are explicitly targeted by such convergence process are: curricula structure, mutual recognition of academic degrees, evaluation procedures. The aim of this work is to evaluate whether it is possible to detect an influence of the Bologna Process on financial resources invested in higher education institutions among the EU-15 countries. We analyse the financial data of HE expenditure in the period 1998-2004 (as the Bologna Declaration was set out in 1998) and, specifically, after the wide implementation of changes in curricula structure in many countries of EU-15 (after 2001). Our approach uses two different techniques: (1) regression models - considering both fixed-effects and random-effects - were used to individuate an eventual �Bologna� effect; (2) then, traditional convergence models (sigma and beta convergence) were employed to analyse this effect in more detail, more specifically to test whether the HE expenditure is converging or diverging in recent years. Our findings suggest that the Bologna Process has had a positive influence on the trend of �expenditure per student� convergence across the EU-15 countries. The estimated speed of convergence is still quite low, and this fact supports a claim for more emphasis on the role of private funding and cost-sharing in terms of European-level policies. However, the EU-15 countries� different traditions and different socio-economic characteristics are strongly affecting this process, so that the European convergence is towards different steady-levels.
