本文嘗試以U.S. News and World Report發表的全美大專院校排名來衡量美國50個州的人力資本品質,並建立線性迴歸模型來驗證人力資本對當地企業創新能力的影響。兩個模型中分別以公司的研發集中度與引用次數加權專利數目做為依變數,代表公司對創新的投入意願以及表現。結果發現大學排名不論是對當地公司的研發集中度或加權專利數目皆有顯著但些微的解釋力,甚至對加權專利數目的影響略高於研發集中度。我將主要原因歸於兩種,一是企業可靠地區優勢招募到當地名校的畢業生,進而提高公司人力資本品質,二是企業較有機會透過與當地大學的產學合作專案來提升公司的創新表現。
This research adopts new measurement of human capital in each state with best colleges ranking published by U.S. News and World Report. I form two linear regression models to test the hypothesis that human capital in terms of university ranking plays an important role in local industrial innovation. R&D intensity and citation-weighted patents are used as two dependent variables in the models, R&D intensity represents company’s willingness to invest in innovation while patents represent the innovation performance. From the OLS estimation results, the colleges ranking has significant but slightly influence on either R&D intensity or citation-weighted patents, and the effect on patents is slightly higher than R&D intensity. I conclude it with two explanations. First, company has geographic advantage to recruit local graduates and improve human capital. Secondly, company is more likely to acquire knowledge spillovers through industry-university cooperative research projects with local universities.