Efficiency and economies of scale and scope in European universities. A directional distance approach

In this paper we investigate economies of scale and scope of European universities.The proposed approach builds on the notion that university production is a multi-input multi-output process different than standard production activity. The analyses are based on an interesting database which integrates the main European universities data on inputs and outputs with bibliometric data on publications, impact and collaborations. We pursue a cross-country perspective; we include subject mix and introduce a robust modeling of production trade-offs. Finally, we test the statistical significance of scale and scope and find that size and specialization have a statistical significant impact both jointly and separately, showing an inverted u-shape effect on efficiency.