Are business and economics alike?

This paper investigates the decision of Italian high school leavers to enroll at Economics or Business degree courses. We use data from National Student Register gathered by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, which provides information for all the students that enroll at the university as well as their academic career. The academic years analysed are 2008-2015. From the aggregate data, we know that at matriculation, the ratio between the enrollment in Economics and Business is 1:3, but what happens in the following years? Is that proportion stable or does it change? We estimate a multiple equation system model for each field of study. First, we focus on the determinants of the decision to enroll. We analyse whether Economics and Business that might be perceived as similar at the time of enrollment, might instead be different in many respects. Second, we exploit the panel component of the dataset to investigate what happens after the first-year: is the student still enrolled in the same field? Or, is the student enrolled in a different major, or in a different topic? We offer policy implications.