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The Growing Allocative Inefficiency of the U.S. Higher Education Sector

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  • James D. Adams
  • J. Roger Clemmons

Abstract

This paper presents new evidence on research and teaching productivity in universities using a panel of 102 top U.S. schools during 1981-1999. Faculty employment grows at 0.6 percent per year, compared with growth of 4.9 percent in industrial researchers. Productivity growth per researcher is 1.4-6.7 percent and is higher in private universities. Productivity growth per teacher is 0.8-1.1 percent and is higher in public universities. Growth in research productivity within universities exceeds overall growth, because the research share grows in universities where productivity growth is less. This finding suggests that allocative efficiency of U.S. higher education declined during the late 20th century. R&D stock, endowment, and post-docs increase research productivity in universities, the effect of nonfederal R&D is less, and the returns to research are diminishing. Since the nonfederal R&D share grows and is higher in public schools, this may explain the rising inefficiency. Decreasing returns in research but not teaching suggest that most differences in university size are due to teaching.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12683.

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Date of creation: Nov 2006
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Publication status: published as James D. Adams, J. Roger Clemmons. "The Growing Allocative Inefficiency of the U.S. Higher Education Sector," in Richard B. Freeman and Daniel L. Goroff, editors, "Science and Engineering Careers in the United States: An Analysis of Markets and Employment" University of Chicago Press (2009)
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12683

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  1. Ronald G. Ehrenberg, 2002. "Studying Ourselves: The Academic Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 8965, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. James D. Adams, 2001. "Comparative Localization of Academic and Industrial Spillovers," NBER Working Papers 8292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. De Figueiredo, John M. & Silverman, Brian S., 2002. "Academic Earmarks and the Returns to Lobbying," Working papers 4245-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
  4. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Patents, Citations, and Innovations: A Window on the Knowledge Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026260065x.
  5. Rothschild, Michael & White, Lawrence J, 1995. "The Analytics of the Pricing of Higher Education and Other Services in Which the Customers Are Inputs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 573-86, June.
  6. Lucia Foster & John Haltiwanger & C.J. Krizan, 1998. "Aggregate Productivity Growth: Lessons from Microeconomic Evidence," NBER Working Papers 6803, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Cited by:
  1. Raul Ramos & Vicente Royuela & Jordi Suriñach, 2006. "An analysis of the determinants in economics and business publications by spanish universities between 1994 and 2004," IREA Working Papers 200602, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Dec 2006.

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