Working Paper: NBER ID: w15233
Authors: James D. Adams
Abstract: The expansion of U.S. universities after World War II gained from the arrival of immigrant scientists and graduate students, the broadening of access to universities, and the development of military research and high technology industry. Since the 1980s, however, growth of scientific research in Europe and East Asia has exceeded that of the U.S., suggesting convergence in world science and engineering and a falling U.S. share. But the slowdown of U.S. publication rates in the late 1990s is a different matter, in that the rise of science elsewhere does not imply a U.S. slowdown in any obvious sense. Using a panel of U.S. universities, fields and years, evidence is found of a slowdown in the growth of resources. In turn, this has caused a deceleration in the growth of research output in public universities and university-fields falling into the middle 40 percent and bottom 40 percent of their disciplines. These developments can be traced to slower growth in tuition and state appropriations in public universities compared to revenue growth, including from endowment, in private universities.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: I23; J31; L31; O31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Reduction in financial resources (G32) | Decreased growth of research output in public universities (O39) |
| Federal research funding increase (I23) | Slower research output growth in public universities (D29) |
| Faster growth in financial resources (O16) | Higher research productivity in private universities (D29) |
| Elasticity of R&D stock (O39) | Positive effects on research output in private universities (I23) |
| Graduate student numbers (A23) | Positive effects on research output in private universities (I23) |
| Financial resource availability (G29) | Divergence in research productivity based on type of university (D29) |