How Do Institutions of Higher Education Affect Local Invention? Evidence from the Establishment of U.S. Colleges
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Andrews, Michael J. 2023. "How Do Institutions of Higher Education Affect Local Invention? Evidence from the Establishment of US Colleges." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 15 (2): 1–41. DOI: 10.1257/pol.20200320
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Abstract
I use data on site selection decisions for a subset of U.S. colleges to identify "runner-up" locations that were strongly considered to become the sites of new colleges but were ultimately not chosen for as-good-as-random reasons. When using runner-up counties as counterfactuals, establishing a college causes 48% more patents per year. Linking patents to novel college yearbook data reveal that only 5% of patents in a college's county came from alumni or faculty of that college. I find no difference in patenting between establishing colleges and establishing other types of institutions, nor between colleges with different focuses on technical fields.