Higher Education and Local Educational Attainment: Evidence from the Establishment of U.S. Colleges
研究美国大学设立对当地教育水平的影响，发现拥有大学的县其大学学历人口比例比未选中的候选县高56%，且人力资本密集型产业就业更多，这种效应并非主要由外来高学历人口驱动。
Abstract We investigate how the presence of a college affects local educational attainment. As counterfactuals for current college locations, we use historical “runner-up” locations that were strongly considered to become college sites but were ultimately not chosen. We find that winning counties today have college degree attainment rates 56% higher than runner-up counties and more private-sector employment in human-capital-intensive industries. These effects are not driven primarily by recent in-migration of educated adults, and alternative public investments did not have similar effects on local educational attainment. The results indicate that colleges played an important role in shaping long-run local outcomes.