ABSTRACT
The University of Regensburg in Bavaria was founded 50 years ago. Throughout its existence, Regensburg and the surrounding areas have experienced a deep structural transformation. In the 1960s and 1970s, the location was considered to be amongst Germany’s crisis regions. Nowadays, by contrast, Regensburg is ranked as one of Bavaria’s economic hot spots. By linking data on the graduates of the university with social security data, we were able to trace the employment careers of the university’s graduates. Using various econometric approaches, we investigate the process of attracting students, on the one hand, and keeping them in the region, on the other. We show that there is a significant adhesive effect for students originating in the region and for students from outside the region. Moreover, we find that young small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employing university graduates have a significantly higher employment growth than other firms. The effect of the highly skilled on the employment dynamics of SMEs is especially strong in the Regensburg region. We therefore conclude that through the qualification and adhesive effects, the university has contributed not only to the favorable skill structure of the local labor force but also plays a key role for the dynamic economic development of the region.
