Polarization in Higher Education and Technological Leadership

Brezis, Elise and Rubin, Amir (2025): Polarization in Higher Education and Technological Leadership.

Abstract

This paper highlights the role of polarization in higher education as a key factor to technological leadership as well as to labor market inequality. Higher education polarization refers to the widening gap between elite and non-elite universities, primarily in two dimensions: institutional quality and the tightness of student recruitment. This paper introduces a model to analyze the impact of polarization and presents new indices that measure polarization within the higher education system. The model emphasizes that disparities in university quality and recruitment tightness influence a country's technological leadership. Specifically, nations with a high "polarization gap" in higher education tend to lead in technology but also experience higher levels of inequality. In the empirical analysis, we construct indices that measure the polarization gap both in quality and tightness of recruitment as well as an index for leadership in technology. These indices are a new contribution to the field of higher education. The findings reveal a positive correlation between the polarization gap, technological leadership, and inequality among OECD countries. In consequence, this paper shows that a nation implementing a public education policy, which establishes a significant dichotomy between top-tier universities and standard ones, may stimulate progress and technological leadership, at the price of inequality.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: ability; polarization; skills; productivity; higher education; technological leadership; inequality.
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I26 - Returns to Education; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J24 - Human Capital ; Skills ; Occupational Choice ; Labor Productivity; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O14 - Industrialization ; Manufacturing and Service Industries ; Choice of Technology; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

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