The governance and performance of universities: evidence from Europe and the US

"We test the hypothesis that universities are more productive when they are both more autonomous and face more competition. Using survey data, we construct indices of university autonomy and competition for both Europe and the United States. We show that there are strong positive correlations between these indices and multiple measures of university output. To obtain causal evidence, we investigate exogenous shocks to US universities' expenditures over three decades. These shocks arise through the political appointment process, which we use to generate instrumental variables. We find that an exogenous increase in a university's expenditure generates more output, measured by either patents or publications, if the university is more autonomous and faces more competition. Exploiting variation over time in the 'stakes' of competitions for US federal research grants, we also find that universities generate more output for a given expenditure when research competitions are high stakes. We draw lessons, arguing that European universities could benefit from a combination of greater autonomy and greater accountability. Greater accountability might come through increased reliance on competitive grants, enhanced competition for students and faculty (promoted by reforms that increase mobility), and yardstick competitions (which often take the form of assessment exercises)." Copyright (c) CEPR, CES, MSH, 2010.

Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2021 Dataset (Joint EVS/WVS)

The European Values Study (EVS) and the World Values Survey (WVS) are two large-scale, cross-national and longitudinal survey research programmes. They include a large number of questions on moral, religious, social, political, occupational and family values which have been replicated since the early eighties. Both organizations agreed to cooperate in joint data collection from 2017. EVS has been responsible for planning and conducting surveys in European countries, using the EVS questionnaire and EVS methodological guidelines. WVSA has been responsible for planning and conducting surveys in countries in the world outside Europe, using the WVS questionnaire and WVS methodological guidelines. Both organisations developed their draft master questionnaires independently. The joint items define the Common Core of both questionnaires. The Joint EVS/WVS is constructed from the two EVS and WVS source datasets: - European Values Study 2017 Integrated Dataset (EVS 2017), ZA7500 Data file Version 4.0.0, doi:10.4232/1.13560 (https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13560). - European Values Study 2017: Ukraine (EVS 2017), ZA7539 Data file Version 1.0.0, doi:10.4232/1.13714 (https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13714). - World Values Survey: Round Seven–Country-Pooled Datafile. Version 2.0.0, doi: 10.14281/18241.13 (https://doi.org/10.14281/18241.13).The European Values Study (EVS) and the World Values Survey (WVS) are two large-scale, cross-national and longitudinal survey research programmes. They include a large number of questions on moral, religious, social, political, occupational and family values which have been replicated since the early eighties. Both organizations agreed to cooperate in joint data collection from 2017. EVS has been responsible for planning and conducting surveys in European countries, using the EVS questionnaire and EVS methodological guidelines. WVSA has been responsible for planning and conducting surveys in countries in the world outside Europe, using the WVS questionnaire and WVS methodological guidelines. Both organisations developed their draft master questionnaires independently. The joint items define the Common Core of both questionnaires. The Joint EVS/WVS is constructed from the two EVS and WVS source datasets: - European Values Study 2017 Integrated Dataset (EVS 2017), ZA7500 Data file Version 4.0.0, doi:10.4232/1.13560 (https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13560). - European Values Study 2017: Ukraine (EVS 2017), ZA7539 Data file Version 1.0.0, doi:10.4232/1.13714 (https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13714). - World Values Survey: Round Seven–Country-Pooled Datafile. Version 2.0.0, doi: 10.14281/18241.13 (https://doi.org/10.14281/18241.13)