Portuguese and Spanish universities have adopted well-defined royalty sharing schedules during the last fifteen years. We investigate whether these inventor royalty shares have been effective at stimulating inventors’ efforts and ultimately improving university outcomes. We base our empirical...

Human capital is one of the most important channels via which universities positively affect regional development. This paper analyzes the relationship between university characteristics and graduation rates, and the role of regional characteristics in this process. We assemble a dataset for the...

Using a counterfactual approach, this paper empirically investigates the impact of an educational programme recently introduced in the Province of Trento (North-East of Italy). The aim of the policy is to foster university enrolment of students from low-income families and to reduce inequalities...

We study collaborative and non-collaborative projects that are supported by government grants. First, we propose a theoretical framework to analyze optimal decisions in these projects. Second, we test our hypotheses with a unique dataset containing academic publications and research funds for...

The paper assesses the performance of the technology licensing offices (TLO) and technology transfer offices (TTO) which have been active in Portuguese higher education institutions. Data stemming from a survey of these entities was analyzed in successive steps through factor analysis, cluster...

In recent decades the contribution made by higher education institutions to regional development has attracted increasing attention. Considering the university as an economic agent with its own budget and expenditure, then the activities it engages in, as well as those of the groups from which...

This paper examines the main contributions of universities to the economic growth of Spanish regions. It calculates the separate effects of the different university functions on the regional economy, namely the creation of human capital, research and technology transfer. It includes a panel data...

Human capital, scientific research, and technology are the three chief mechanisms promoting knowledge spillovers from universities to firms. Based on a study of the impact of Spain’s 1983 University Reform Act (LRU), which opened the door to the foundation of new universities and faculties,...

PhD graduates hold the highest education degree, are trained to conduct research and can be considered a key element in the creation, commercialization and diffusion of innovations. The impact of PhDs on innovation and economic development takes place through several channels such as the...

This paper links governance reforms with potential improvements in efficiency in Spanish universities. Taking the classic DEA model as our starting-point, we focus on the study of efficient units to identify the ones that present atypical behaviour (outliers) and should be removed from the...