Paul Charruau (Université Jean Monnet) – Universities and innovation: Empirical evidence from the local impact of new-universities created in France

The creation of new universities is probably one of the oldest public policies boosting economic development. Several studies, which date back to the seminal work by Jaffe 1989, show that this impact takes place mainly locally. On this basis, a number of public research and higher education decentralization programmes were implemented over the last decades in order to reduce territorial imbalances. However, there is still insufficient evidence about their relevance. In this context, this study is the first to test the causal impact of setting up new universities within secondary cities to foster local innovation. Focusing on the French university decentralisation policy in the late 20th century, we rely on patent data as indicators of innovation outcome. Based on a staggered event study design, and controlling for unobserved local features and annual shocks, the paper analyses 183 commuting-zones between 1980 and 2014, without higher-education establishment before 1980 and located outside of the Paris region. This balanced panel includes 10 zones with “new-universities” created from 1990 to 1995, 48 decentralized satellite campuses created from 1980 to 2013, and 125 zones without any higher-education establishment. The preliminary results suggest that higher education decentralisation has a positive and significant impact on local patenting. The effects seem more robust in small cities that benefit from hosting decentralized satellite campuses, whereas it is less clear that new-university creation led to substantial innovation boost when comparing with areas of similar size.