Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities?

 

Incentives, Resources, and Virtuous Circles:

Around 1875 the U.S. had none of the world’s leading research universities; today, it accounts for the majority of the top-ranked. Many observers cite events surrounding World War II as the source of this reversal. 

This study presents evidence that U.S. research universities had surpassed most countries’ decades before WWII. An explanation of their dominance must therefore begin earlier. The one this study woffers highlights reforms that began after the Civil War and enhanced the incentives and resources the system directs at research. The story is not one of success by design, but rather of competition leading American colleges to begin to care about research.  This led to increasing academic specialization, and in turn, to more precise measures of professors’ research output. Combined with sorting dynamics that concentrated talent and resources at some schools—and the emergence of tenure—this enhanced research performance.