Tertiary education expansion and regional firm development

Tobias Schlegel, Curdin Pfister and Uschi Backes-Gellner

Regional Studies, 2022, vol. 56, issue 11, 1874-1887

Abstract: This study investigates the impact of a tertiary education expansion on regional firm development, as measured by average profits per firm. We exploit the quasi-random establishment of universities of applied sciences (UASs) – bachelor’s degree-granting three-year colleges teaching and conducting applied research – to construct treatment and control groups and to apply both a difference-in-differences model and an event study design. We find that after the establishment of new UASs in Switzerland, average profits per firm in the treated municipalities increase by 19.6% more than in the control group. This increase corresponds roughly to an additional annual growth in average profits per firm in the treatment group of 0.7%. The effects start shortly after the establishment of UASs but also persist over a period of up to 10 years.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2021.2010695

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