Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The practice of publicly funded science is global; research collaborations span countries; researchers move across continents.  Yet public support of research typically relies on the notion that universities are engines of economic development, and that university research is a primary driver of R&D intensive high wage localized economic activity.  This paper establishes that it is possible to use transactional data to capture the dynamics between research grants and associated purchases from regional suppliers in both Europe and the United States.

 

The paper uses new micro-data from three countries - France, Spain and the United States - to examine one mechanism whereby such economic activity is generated, namely purchases from regional businesses. We analyze links between business and the universities that support them looking at the distance between universities and the vendors supported on grant funds, the probability that a vendor in one period is likely to be a vendor on the same or related grants in the future; and the probability that vendors open new establishments close to the universities to which they supply equipment and supplies.

Keywords: Science policy, innovation, regional economic development, UMETRICS