Spillovers de Conhecimento e Desenvolvimento Regional: Evidência de Portugal

Abstract

One of the interesting issues of current economic literature is the role of investigation carried out at universities and its spillovers as stimuli for regional development. However, the precise mechanisms that link investment in education to performance in different regions are still unknown. This project proposes to test the existence of positive external factors linked to the location of universities, as well as the nature and quality of research carried out by them. Particularly we considered (and tested) the different impact of investigation in social sciences – that has a predominantly tacit character – of investigation in natural sciences, these with a more codified nature. The indicator used as measure for company development is the productivity of the work factor, measured by the ratio of Gross Added Value and the number of workers.