The impact of federal R&D obligations on the U.S. states' economies

Previous studies have provided us with adequate theoretical support and abundant empirical evidence of the chain of logic from local R&D activities, to the creation of agglomeration economies, to private investment and firm locations, and finally to regional economic growth. This dissertation aims to enhance our understanding of the impact of federal R&D locations on regional economies. One contribution of this dissertation is to specify the federal R&D obligations by different recipients. I argue that the federal R&D obligations received by different recipients impact regional economies in different ways. The dissertation addresses four issues: (1) what are the political factors related to the geographical distribution of federal R&D obligations; (2) how the federal R&D obligations received by different R&D recipients in a state affect the state's per capita personal income; (3) how the federal R&D obligations received by different R&D performers in a state affect the venture capital investment in the state; (4) how the federal R&D obligations received by different R&D performers in a state affect the industry financed R&D performed by universities in the state. I apply the longitudinal dataset on 50 U.S. states to do empirical analyses. Also I employ the pooled cross-sectional model, fixed-effects model and random-effects model to estimate and compare the results from these different models.;One of the important research findings is that the political affiliation in the U.S. House and the President has an effect on the disparity between southern states and northern states in receiving federal R&D support. The other important finding is that the federal support for university R&D is statistically significant and positively affects per capita personal income, venture capital investment and industry financed R&D performed by universities. The finding implies that the most efficient way for federal funds to generate spin-off benefit for regional economies is through supporting university R&D.