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I use narrative historical data on site selection decisions for a
subset of U.S. colleges to identify "runner-up" locations that were
strongly considered to become the sites of new colleges. Using
runner-up counties as counterfactuals in a difference-in-difference
model, I find that establishing a college causes 62% more patents
per year. Linking patents to novel college yearbook data reveal that
only 12% of patents in a college's county came from that college's
alumni or faculty. I find only small differences in patenting between establishing colleges and establishing other institutions, as
well as between colleges with different focuses on technical fields.
