On Understanding and Evaluating the University's Evolving Economic Development Policy

This article presents evidence that the university has evolved in recent years into an active player in the local economic development game and an attempt is made to provide an understanding of this evolution in university policy on the basis of political and economic events during the 1980s. Finally, a model is specified and estimated for a sample of cities to evaluate the effectiveness of university economic development policy. The results, while not definitive, do suggest that the university can be a positive influence on economic development in a city and that some of the most explicit policies, including the Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs), have the most significant impact on local job growth.