More than a new campus: University's spatial expansion, emerging knowledge cluster, and innovation growth

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of university spatial expansion on local innovation activities, focusing on the construction of new campuses in China. By treating new campus establishment as a quasi-experiment, we construct a unique geocoded dataset at both county-firm and ring-firm levels, and employ the difference-in-difference approach for causal inference. The relevant results confirm that the establishment of new campuses has a growth effect on local innovation. This positive impact is the result of knowledge spillover from the new campus through collaborative innovation and patent citation, and it decays with geographic distance. These findings suggest that the establishment of new campuses creates an emerging innovation cluster and have extensive policy implications.