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Doctoral Education and Economic Development: The Flow of New Ph.D.s to Industry

Albert J. Sumell

Grant C. Black

Georgia State University

James D. Adams

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Doctoral education in science and engineering is critical to the university’s role in fostering economic development. One aspect of this is the placement of recent graduates with firms. Despite the role Ph.D.s play in this process, little work has documented and analyzed these firm placements. This article takes a first step at rectifying this deficiency, using data from the 1997-1999 Survey of Earned Doctorates administered by the National Science Foundation to all doctoral recipients in the United States. The authors show that knowledge sources, as measured by the training location of new Ph.D.s going to industry, are concentrated in different geographic centers from those that university R&Dexpenditure data would suggest. The authors also find significant outflows from the Midwest of Ph.D.s and significant inflows to the Pacific and northeast regions of the country. The authors’work suggests that many states fail to capture the economic development advantages that come from training a skilled work force.

Key Words: economic development • innovation • firm R&D • Ph.D. employment • Ph.D. mobility • knowledge transfer

Economic Development Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2, 151-167 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0891242403262019


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