The Impact of Research Universities on Regional Economies: The Concept of University Products

Abstract

In what ways do research universities interact with regional economies? The answer to this central question can be found in a framework of the interaction of university products and necessary factors for technology-based economic development. The bundled nature of university products makes it impossible to separately assess the impact of universities on their regional economies. The National Science Foundation’s ranking of top research universities and retrospective data on academic R&D expenditures are used in regression models to measure universities’ long-term effects over the phases of the latest business cycle. The pattern of statistical significance and the signs of the regression coefficients suggest that the presence of research universities has a positive effect on metropolitan economies above cyclical economic changes. The effect differs depending on the scale of university R&D expenditures and suggests that the most prominent research universities have a stronger impact on their regional economies.