Exploring determinants and trend ofSTEM students internal mobility. Someevidence from Italy

In recent years, there has been a widespread consensus that science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education is crucial for the long-term productivity and growth of a country. In this light, the present paper aims to explore the phenomenon of the mobility of Italian STEM students, namely, the flows of graduated students from the Southern regions who enrol in the universities in the Northern/Central area and choose a STEM degree course. We exploit microdata from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) on 8 cohorts (from a.y. 2008/2009 to a.y. 2015/16) of enrolled students in STEM fields who obtained high school diplomas in Southern Italy. The main results of our analysis show that the flow of STEM movers increases from year to year. This flow particularly affects the top-performing students and, therefore, is a threat to the socio-economic growth prospects of the Southern regions whose gap with respect to the Central and Northern regions is expected to grow year by year.