Titelaufnahme

This paper investigates whether or not research quality is significantly associated with a university's ability to attract students from other provinces in Italy. First university enrolments of students over the period 2003-2011 are regressed on several universities’ research quality indicators computed from different bibliometric databases (ISI-Thompson, Scopus-Elsevier and Google Scholar) using fixed effects-gravity models. Our estimates suggest that improving research quality may be an effective way of reducing 'brain drain' from southern Italy.