Times Higher Education:
Are universities engines or products of economic growth?
31 May 2018
Research productivity – measured by number of papers produced per head of population – also correlates reasonably strongly with economic development measures. So do enrolment levels in tertiary education – although, interestingly, the correlation declines as enrolment rates increase, suggesting that a law of diminishing returns could apply. In addition, according to Anna Valero, an ESRC innovation fellow at the London School of Economics, “simple country-level correlations show that those with more universities tend to have more patents. And evidence suggests links between local patenting and growth. These effects tend to be stronger for growth in industries that are relevant for the particular patent or research area”.