Determinants of Research Production at Top US Universities

In this article, I analyze the determinants of research production by higher education institutions in the US. I use four measures to build an index of top-level academic research production. I show that it is important to account for the presence of outliers in both dimensions (X and Y axes) and that most top-ranked institutions can be considered outliers. I find that university income, the share of income devoted to research expenses, and faculty size significantly increase the ability of an institution to produce top-level academic research. I also show that the relationship between average professor quality (proxied by salary) and the production of research is U-shaped, with a significant share of institutions located on the decreasing part of the curve.