IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v38y2009i7p1102-1116.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economics of universities in a new age of funding options

Author

Listed:
  • Just, Richard E.
  • Huffman, Wallace E.

Abstract

The environment in which universities in the United States and some other countries operate has been changing, creating discussion of privatization of public universities. This paper examines the implications for US universities of greater access to royalties for federally funded, private-goods research, and reduced government grants or transfers to support public-goods research. Conditions under which increased private-goods research for out-of-state firms (developing patents and private market applications) leads to higher tuition and reductions in instruction and basic research are developed. The likely outcome is greater privatization of public universities, which may lead to a new public-private structure for what have been the leading US public research universities.

Suggested Citation

  • Just, Richard E. & Huffman, Wallace E., 2009. "The economics of universities in a new age of funding options," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1102-1116, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:38:y:2009:i:7:p:1102-1116
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048-7333(09)00112-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard E. Just & Wallace E. Huffman, 1992. "Economic Principles and Incentives: Structure, Management, and Funding of Agricultural Research in the United States," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(5), pages 1101-1108.
    2. Rebecca Henderson & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 1998. "Universities As A Source Of Commercial Technology: A Detailed Analysis Of University Patenting, 1965-1988," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 119-127, February.
    3. Khanna, Jyoti & Huffman, Wallace E & Sandler, Todd, 1994. "Agricultural Research Expenditures in the United States: A Public Goods Perspective," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(2), pages 267-277, May.
    4. McMillan, G. Steven & Narin, Francis & Deeds, David L., 2000. "An analysis of the critical role of public science in innovation: the case of biotechnology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-8, January.
    5. Jaffe, Adam B., 2000. "The U.S. patent system in transition: policy innovation and the innovation process," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4-5), pages 531-557, April.
    6. Wallace E. Huffman & Richard E. Just, 2000. "Setting Efficient Incentives for Agricultural Research: Lessons from Principal-Agent Theory," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(4), pages 828-841.
    7. Huffman, Wallace E. & Evenson, Robert E., 1993. "Science for Agriculture: A Long Term Perspective," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10997, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    8. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1999. "The Shaping of Higher Education: The Formative Years in the United States, 1890 to 1940," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 37-62, Winter.
    9. David, Paul A. & Hall, Bronwyn H. & Toole, Andrew A., 2000. "Is public R&D a complement or substitute for private R&D? A review of the econometric evidence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4-5), pages 497-529, April.
    10. Marie Thursby & Richard Jensen, 2001. "Proofs and Prototypes for Sale: The Licensing of University Inventions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 240-259, March.
    11. Richard R. Nelson, 2006. "The Market Economy and the Scientific Commons," Chapters, in: Birgitte Andersen (ed.), Intellectual Property Rights, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wipo, 2011. "World Intellectual Property Report 2011- The Changing Face of Innovation," WIPO Economics & Statistics Series, World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division, number 2011:944, April.
    2. Sengupta, Abhijit & Rossi, Federica, 2023. "The relationship between universities' funding portfolios and their knowledge exchange profiles: A dynamic capabilities view," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    3. Tiffany Shih & Brian Wright, 2011. "Agricultural Innovation," NBER Chapters, in: Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors, pages 49-85, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Wallace E. Huffman, 2020. "Human Capital and Adoption of Innovations: Policy Implications," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(1), pages 92-99, March.
    5. Huffman, Wallace, 2009. "Investing in People for the 21st Century," Staff General Research Papers Archive 13127, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    6. Javier García-Estévez & Néstor Duch-Brown, 2012. "Student graduation: to what extent does university expenditure matter?," Working Papers 2012/4, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    7. Bradley J. Rickard & Timothy J. Richards & Jubo Yan, 2016. "University licensing of patents for varietal innovations in agriculture," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 47(1), pages 3-14, January.
    8. Stéphanie Chatelain-Ponroy & Christine Musselin & Stéphanie Mignot-Gerard & Samuel Sponem, 2013. "Reforms in French Public Universities. How does commitment to performance match with commitment to public values?," Post-Print halshs-00842166, HAL.
    9. Bradford Barham & Jeremy Foltz & Ana Paula Melo, 2020. "Academic Engagement, Commercialization, and Scholarship: Empirical Evidence from Agricultural and Life Scientists at US Land Grant Universities," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture, pages 179-208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Thomas Wolfgang Thurner, 2017. "TRANSFER REVENUES OF RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY ORGANIZATIONS (RTOs) IN TIMES OF ECONOMIC CRISIS," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(02), pages 1-24, February.
    11. Fukuyama, Hirofumi & Weber, William L. & Xia, Yin, 2016. "Time substitution and network effects with an application to nanobiotechnology policy for US universities," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 34-44.
    12. Akhundjanov, Sherzod B. & Gallardo, R. Karina & McCluskey, Jill J. & Rickard, Bradley J., 2020. "Commercialization of a demand-enhancing innovation: The release of a new apple variety by a public university," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 88-100.
    13. Gallardo, R. Karina & McCluskey, Jill J. & Rickard, Bradley J. & Akhundjanov, Sherzod B., 2016. "Assessing Innovator and Grower Profit Potential under Different New Plant Variety Commercialization Strategies," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235940, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Charlene L. Nicholls-Nixon & Dave Valliere & Steven A. Gedeon & Sean Wise, 2021. "Entrepreneurial ecosystems and the lifecycle of university business incubators: An integrative case study," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 809-837, June.
    15. Sparger, John Adam & Norton, George W. & Heisey, Paul W. & Alwang, Jeffrey, 2013. "Is the share of agricultural maintenance research rising in the United States?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 126-135.
    16. Javier García-Estévez & Néstor Duch-Brown, 2012. "Student graduation: to what extent does university expenditure matter?," Working Papers 2012/4, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:kap:iaecre:v:11:y:2005:i:2:p:201-213 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Oscar Alfranca, 2005. "Private R&D and Spillovers in European Agriculture," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 11(2), pages 201-213, May.
    3. Beck, Mathias & Junge, Martin & Kaiser, Ulrich, 2017. "Public Funding and Corporate Innovation," IZA Discussion Papers 11196, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Amit Shovon Ray & Sabyasachi Saha, "undated". "Patenting Public-Funded Research for Technology Transfer: A Conceptual-Empirical Synthesis of US Evidence and Lessons for India," Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi Working Papers 244, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi, India.
    5. Gersbach, Hans & Sorger, Gerhard & Amon, Christian, 2018. "Hierarchical growth: Basic and applied research," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 434-459.
    6. Huffman, Wallace & Evenson, Robert, 2003. "Determinants of the Demand for State Agricultural Experiment Station Resources: A Demand-System Approach," ISU General Staff Papers 200312010800001236, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Francesco Lissoni & Fabio Montobbio, 2015. "The Ownership of Academic Patents and Their Impact. Evidence from Five European Countries," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 66(1), pages 143-171.
    8. Huffman, Wallace, 2005. "Developments in the Organization and Finance of Public Agricultural Research in the United States, 1988-1999," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12485, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Breschi, Stefano & Catalini, Christian, 2010. "Tracing the links between science and technology: An exploratory analysis of scientists' and inventors' networks," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 14-26, February.
    10. Seokbeom Kwon & Kazuyuki Motohashi & Kenta Ikeuchi, 2022. "Chasing two hares at once? Effect of joint institutional change for promoting commercial use of university knowledge and scientific research," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 1242-1272, August.
    11. Kato, Masatoshi & Odagiri, Hiroyuki, 2012. "Development of university life-science programs and university–industry joint research in Japan," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 939-952.
    12. Caviggioli, Federico & De Marco, Antonio & Montobbio, Fabio & Ughetto, Elisa, 2020. "The licensing and selling of inventions by US universities," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    13. Alfranca, Oscar & Huffman, Wallace E., 2001. "Impact of institutions and public research on private agricultural research," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 25(2-3), pages 191-198, September.
    14. Denisa Mindruta, 2013. "Value creation in university-firm research collaborations: A matching approach," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(6), pages 644-665, June.
    15. David H. Hsu & Jeffrey M. Kuhn, 2023. "Academic stars and licensing experience in university technology commercialization," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 887-905, March.
    16. Materia, V.C. & Pascucci, S. & Kolympiris, C., 2015. "Understanding the selection processes of public research projects in agriculture: The role of scientific merit," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 87-99.
    17. Paul Heisey & Sarah Adelman, 2011. "Research expenditures, technology transfer activity, and university licensing revenue," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 38-60, February.
    18. Xia, Yin & Yuan, Yiyong, 2005. "Privatization of Agricultural Biotechnology Research at U.S. Universities," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19276, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Krabel, Stefan & Mueller, Pamela, 2009. "What drives scientists to start their own company?: An empirical investigation of Max Planck Society scientists," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 947-956, July.
    20. Julien Pénin, 2009. "On the consequences of university patenting: What can we learn by asking directly to academic inventors?," Working Papers of BETA 2009-04, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    21. Saul Lach & Mark Schankerman, 2008. "Incentives and invention in universities," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 403-433, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:38:y:2009:i:7:p:1102-1116. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.