Institutional Quality of Human Capital Assessment and Meritocratic Selection in a Post-Transition Higher Education Environment - Economicus

By Peter SZIKORA

Abstract
Reliable human capital assessment is an important institutional precondition for meritocratic selection and, indirectly, for productivity-enhancing resource allocation in post-transition economies. This study examines the institutional quality of
student thesis evaluation in a post-transition higher education environment, with particular attention to whether grading patterns are associated with institutional proximity or hierarchical relationships between reviewers and the circle of academic advisors. The analysis is based on an anonymized administrative database from one university and covers 4,953 individual thesis reviews. Empirically, the paper combines review-level group comparisons, analyses of deviations from thesis-level average reviewer scores, and direct comparisons within a two-reviewer subsample. The results indicate a small but statistically detectable positive scoring shift associated with institutional proximity, while the effects of hierarchical relationships are not
robust across specifications. At the same time, the overall magnitude of the observed relational effects remains limited, and no evidence of strong structural distortion is found. The findings suggest that the examined evaluation system is fundamentally functional and relatively stable, although minor proximity-related effects cannot be fully excluded. By focusing on the micro-level institutional mechanisms through which performance is assessed and differentiated, the study contributes to the literature on human capital, institutional quality, and the meritocratic foundations of productivity-relevant selection in post-transition settings.

Keywords: human capital assessment; institutional quality; evaluation system; institutional proximity; post-transition higher education environment