American universities were weak at research in the 1800s—none had the professors or money necessary to compete with European rivals. By contrast, by the mid-1900s, they led the world in research. How did a few American schools rise to preeminence? Could their position be reversed?
These questions matter because university research contributes to human welfare. It helped create technologies like the internet and the algorithms and positioning systems used by Google and Uber. It produced medical tools like X-rays and continues to advance cancer treatments. Keeping university research vigorous is crucial to U.S. and world prosperity.
This book focuses on the fact that the U.S. takes a free-market approach to education. It argues that this approach accounts for why American universities were weak at research initially and for why they they improved.
The book also discusses factors that, already by the 2010s, threatened U.S. universities’ lead.
Coverage/reviews of the book and related work:
Freakonomics Radio (Stephen Dubner, 2022)
Marginal Revolution (Tyler Cowen, 2020)
Journal of Economic Literature (Michael Andrews, 2021)
American Economic Association (podcast interview with Tyler Smith, 2021)
Martin Center (John Staddon, 2020)
Available at Harvard University Press and Amazon.