Andrews, Michael2021-06-102021-06-102023-05-02Andrews, 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.20200320https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20200320http://hdl.handle.net/11603/21720I 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.121 pagesen-USThis item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.Text