IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15233.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is the U.S. Losing Its Preeminence in Higher Education?

Author

Listed:
  • 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.

Suggested Citation

  • James D. Adams, 2009. "Is the U.S. Losing Its Preeminence in Higher Education?," NBER Working Papers 15233, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15233
    Note: ED PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15233.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard B. Freeman, 2006. "Does Globalization of the Scientific/Engineering Workforce Threaten US Economic Leadership?," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 6, pages 123-158, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Michael J. Rizzo & George H. Jakubson, 2003. "Who Bears the Growing Cost of Science at Universities?," NBER Working Papers 9627, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Toole, Andrew A. & Czarnitzki, Dirk, 2007. "Life Scientist Mobility from Academe to Industry: Does Academic Entrepreneurship Induce a Costly ?Brain Drain? on the Not-for-Profit Research Sector?," ZEW Discussion Papers 07-072, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeffrey Thompson, 2010. "Prioritizing Approaches to Economic Development in New England: Skills, Infrastructure, and Tax Incentives," Published Studies priorities_september7_per, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    2. Chevalier, Arnaud, 2012. "To Be or Not to Be... a Scientist?," IZA Discussion Papers 6353, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Alexander Whalley & Justin Hicks, 2014. "Spending Wisely? How Resources Affect Knowledge Production In Universities," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lawson, Cornelia & Geuna, Aldo & Ana Fernández-Zubieta & Toselli, Manuel & Kataishi, Rodrigo, 2015. "International Careers of Researchers in Biomedical Sciences: A Comparison of the US and the UK," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201514, University of Turin.
    2. Brown, Clair & Linden, Greg, 2007. "Semiconductor Engineers in a Global Economy," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt6fr9b2p9, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    3. Ferrall, Christopher & Natalia, Mishagina, 2009. "Should I Stay or Should I Go…North? First Job Location of U.S. Trained Doctorates 1957-2005," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-33, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 22 Jun 2009.
    4. Richard B. Freeman, 2006. "People Flows in Globalization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 145-170, Spring.
    5. Reinhilde Veugelers, 2011. "A G2 for science?," Bruegel Policy Brief 519, Bruegel.
    6. Jürgen Janger & Nicole Schmidt-Padickakudy & Anna Strauss-Kollin, 2019. "International Differences in Basic Research Grant Funding. A Systematic Comparison," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 61664.
    7. Gnanaraj Chellaraj & Keith E. Maskus & Aaditya Mattoo, 2008. "The Contribution of International Graduate Students to US Innovation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 444-462, August.
    8. Jeremy Foltz & Bradford Barham & Jean-Paul Chavas & Kwansoo Kim, 2012. "Efficiency and technological change at US research universities," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 171-186, April.
    9. Le, Tam-Tri & Nguyen, Minh-Hoang, 2022. "Tra cứu nhanh về hai chủ đề quan trọng với học giới," OSF Preprints b4sma, Center for Open Science.
    10. Richards B. Freeman, 2007. "Migracje w procesie globalizacji," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 1-2, pages 99-129.
    11. Gregory J Hather & Winston Haynes & Roger Higdon & Natali Kolker & Elizabeth A Stewart & Peter Arzberger & Patrick Chain & Dawn Field & B Robert Franza & Biaoyang Lin & Folker Meyer & Vural Ozdemir & , 2010. "The United States of America and Scientific Research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(8), pages 1-9, August.
    12. Susan Christopherson & Jennifer Clark, 2010. "Limits to ‘The Learning Region’: What University-centered Economic Development Can (and Cannot) do to Create Knowledge-based Regional Economies," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 25(2), pages 120-130, March.
    13. Mario Coccia, 2019. "Metabolism of Public Research Organizations: How Do Laboratories Consume State Subsidies?," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 473-491, December.
    14. Pawan Agarwal, 2006. "Higher Education in India - The Need for Change," Development Economics Working Papers 22139, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    15. Gordon H. Hanson & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2017. "High-Skilled Immigration and the Rise of STEM Occupations in US Employment," NBER Chapters, in: Education, Skills, and Technical Change: Implications for Future US GDP Growth, pages 465-494, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Ali-Yrkkö, Jyrki & Deschryvere, Matthias, 2008. "Domestic R&D Employment Effects of Offshoring R&D Tasks: Some Empirical Evidence from Finland," Discussion Papers 1163, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    17. Necoechea-Mondragón, Hugo & Pineda-Domínguez, Daniel & Pérez-Reveles, Luz & Soto-Flores, Rocío, 2017. "Critical factors for participation in global innovation networks. Empirical evidence from the Mexican nanotechnology sector," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 293-312.
    18. Rosenbloom, Joshua L. & Ginther, Donna K., 2017. "Show me the Money: Federal R&D Support for Academic Chemistry, 1990–2009," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1454-1464.
    19. Mobarak, Ahmed & Maskus, Keith & Stuen, Eric T., 2010. "Skilled Immigration and Innovation: Evidence from Enrollment Fluctuations in U.S. Doctoral Programs," CEPR Discussion Papers 7709, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Prema‐chandra Athukorala, 2009. "The Rise of China and East Asian Export Performance: Is the Crowding‐Out Fear Warranted?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 234-266, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15233. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.