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Title: The Role of Universities in Local Invention: Evidence from the Establishment of U.S. Colleges
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2017
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Abstract: I exploit historical natural experiments to study how establishing a new college affects local invention. Throughout the nineteenth to the mid twentieth century, many new colleges were established in the U.S. I use data on the site selection decisions for a subset of these colleges to identify “losing finalist” locations that were strongly considered to become the site of a new college but were ultimately not chosen for plausibly exogenous reasons. The losing finalists are very similar to the winning college counties along observable dimensions. Using the losing finalists as counterfactuals, I find that the establishment of a new college caused 33% more patents per year in college counties relative to the losing finalists. To determine the channels by which colleges increase patenting, I use a novel dataset of college yearbooks and individual level census data to learn who the additional patents in college counties come from. A college’s alumni account for about 10% of the additional patents, while faculty account for less than 1%. Knowledge spillovers to individuals unaffiliated with the college or living in the college county prior to the establishment of the new college also account for less than 1% of the additional patents. Migration is the primary channel by which colleges affect local invention, as controlling for county population accounts for 40-65% of the increase in patenting in college counties relative to the losing finalists. In spite of this, the presence of geographic spillovers suggests that colleges cause an overall net increase in patenting, although I find no evidence that colleges are better at promoting invention than other policies that lead to similar levels of urbanization.
Url: https://sites.northwestern.edu/mja1297/files/2017/10/Download-Job-Market-Paper-PDF-283x6ty.pdf
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Authors: Andrews, Michael
Publisher: Northwestern University
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Education, Other
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