Why is Harvard #1? Governance and the Dominance of US Universities

This paper examines three related puzzles: 1) Why do US universities dominate the global rankings? 2) Within US universities, why is Harvard University usually ranked at the top? 3) While most universities take centuries to acquire a global reputation how have many US universities leapfrogged to the front ranks of educational institutions in a relatively short period of time? The perspective that we provide focuses on governance structures of US Universities. Looking at both historical data as well as contemporary data collected for this paper, we provide some new evidence and some new conclusions