TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Cappellari, Lorenzo
AU  - Colussi, Tommaso
AU  - Ovidi, Marco
        TI  - Gendered Honors: Graduation Committees, Academic Distinction, and Early-Career Outcomes
        PY  - 2026/Jul/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18798
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18798
        AB  - We study how committee dynamics affect the recognition of academic excellence and its consequences in the labour market. Using administrative records from a major Italian university and exploiting exogenous variation in the gender composition of graduation committees, we show that equally prepared female graduates are significantly less likely to receive laude honors when evaluated by male-majority committees, while males are unaffected. The effect is concentrated among students advised by female or early-career faculty and disappears when a woman chairs the committee, pointing to the role of authority and influence in deliberations. We show pre-defense gender gaps in adivsors’ official laude requests in male-majority committees, consistent with nominations responding to expected committee support. Gaps in academic distinction translate into meaningful entry-wage penalties, contributing to gender gaps at labor-market entry.
        KW  - gender bias
KW  - academic evaluation
KW  - labor market outcomes
        ER  -