We investigate how university governance affects research output, measured by patenting and international university research rankings. For both European and U.S. universities, we generate several measures of autonomy, governance, and competition for research funding. We show that university autonomy and competition are positively correlated with university output, both among European countries and among U.S. public universities. We then identity a (political) source of exogenous shocks to funding of U.S. universities. We demonstrate that, when a state's universities receive a positive funding shock, they produce more patents if they are more autonomous and face more competition from private research universities. Finally, we show that during periods when merit-based competitions for federal research funding have been most prominent, universities produce more patents when they receive an exogenous funding shock, suggesting that routine participation in such competitions hones research skill.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
14851.
Length: Date of creation: Apr 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14851
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H0 - Public Economics - - General H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education Research Institutions I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy O3 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change
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