How Do Institutions of Higher Education Affect Local Invention? Evidence from the Establishment of US Colleges

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Andrews, Michael J.
• 署名单位: University System of Maryland; University of Maryland Baltimore County
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20200320
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1-41
• 关键词: universities evidence; knowledge spillovers; INNOVATION; agglomeration; location; mobility; science; PRODUCTIVITY; 20th-century; scientists

摘要

I use narrative historical data on site selection decisions for a sub-set of US colleges to identify runner-up locations that were strongly considered to become the sites of new colleges. Using runner-up counties as counterfactuals in a difference-in-difference model, I find that establishing a college causes 62 percent more patents per year. Linking patents to novel college yearbook data reveals that only 12 percent of patents in a college's county came from that col-lege's alumni or faculty. I find only small differences in patenting between establishing colleges and establishing other institutions as well as between colleges with different focuses on technical fields. (JEL I23, N31, N32, N71, N72, O31, O34)