The governance and performance of universities: Evidence from Europe and the US

By Philippe Aghion, Mathias Dewatripont, C. Hoxby, Andreu Mas-Colell, A. Sapir. 2010

363 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We test the hypothesis that universities are more productive when they are both more autonomous and face more competition. Using survey data, we construct indices of university autonomy and competition for both Europe and the United States. We show that there are strong positive correlations between these indices and multiple measures of university output. To obtain causal evidence, we investigate exogenous shocks to US universities' expenditures over three decades. These shocks arise through the political appointment process, which we use to generate instrumental variables. We find that an exogenous increase in a university's expenditure generates more output, measured by either patents or publications, if the university is more autonomous and faces more competition. Exploiting variation over time in the 'stakes' of competitions for US federal research grants, we also find that universities generate more output for a given expenditure when research competitions are high stakes. We draw lessons, arguing that European universities could benefit from a combination of greater autonomy and greater accountability. Greater accountability might come through increased reliance on competitive grants, enhanced competition for students and faculty (promoted by reforms that increase mobility), and yardstick competitions (which often take the form of assessment exercises). © CEPR, CES, MSH, 2010.

Subfields: Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0c3b1ac814212ebcf5eb46dfda4ffdcc700957ac

How researchers see this paper

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In Political Science and International Relations

1. Eric A. Hanushek
2. Ludger Woessmann
3. David Urbano
4. Maribel Guerrero
5. James A. Cunningham

Citations in the corpus

• Bombs, Brains, and Science: The Role of Human and Physical Capital for the Creation of Scientific Knowledge (2016, neutral): “Recent research has shown that more autonomous universities and those operating in a more competitive environment are better at converting funding increases into research output (Aghion et al., 2010).”
• Does School Autonomy Make Sense Everywhere? Panel Estimates from PISA (2011, background): “5 In analyzing governance aspects at the level of tertiary education, Aghion et al. (2010) show that autonomy is positively related to universities’ research output in the U.S. and in Europe and argue for benefits from combining autonomy with accountability.”
• Economic Impact of Entrepreneurial Universities' Activities: An Exploratory Study of the United Kingdom (2015, background): “…the competition varies across universities, but the most entrepreneurial universities (research-intensive) see themselves competing in international and national markets (for talented students, staff, and academics) while traditional universities focus more on local markets (Aghion et al., 2010).”
• The economic case for education† (2016, background): “But it seems that a similar focus on accountability, autonomy, choice, and competition may be warranted when considering improvements in the European system of higher education (Aghion et al. 2010).”
• The Role of Connections in Academic Promotions (2014, neutral): “European countries are increasingly concerned with the efficiency of their higher education and, during the last decade, several countries have reformed the organization of universities (Aghion et al. 2010).”
• How Much Do Educational Outcomes Matter in OECD Countries? (2011, neutral): “See the international study of Woessmann, Luedemann, Schuetz, and West (2009) and the United States analysis of Hanushek and Lindseth (2009).”