The Americanization of European Higher Education and Research

Lex Borghans and Frank Cörvers

No 4445, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Over the past two decades there has been a substantial increase in the mobility of students in Europe, while also research has become much more internationally oriented. In this paper we document changes in the structure of research and higher education in Europe and investigate potential explanations for the strong increase in its international orientation. While higher education started to grow substantially around 1960, only a few decades later, research and higher education transformed gradually to the American standard. Decreased communication costs are likely causes for this trend. This transformation is most clearly revealed in the change of language used in research from the national language, Latin, German and French to English. Smaller language areas made this transformation earlier while there are also clear timing differences between research fields. Sciences and medicine tend to switch to English first, followed by economics and social sciences, while for law and arts only the first signs of such a transformation are currently observed. This suggests that returns to scale and the transferability of research results are important influences in the decision to adopt the international standard.

Keywords: Americanization; research; higher education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2009-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-his, nep-lab and nep-sog
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Charles T. Clotfelter (ed.), American Universities in a Global Market, NBER, 2010

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Related works:
Chapter: The Americanization of European Higher Education and Research (2010)
Journal Article: The americanization of European higher education and research (2010)
Working Paper: The Americanization of European Higher Education and Research (2009)
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