The role of West Virginia University in the economic development of West Virginia: A general equilibrium approach

Abstract

Universities, industries and government are major institutions and play an important role in local economic growth and development. They often work collectively in achieving these goals. While the role of institutions in economic development is well-founded in the literature, a university's strategic role as an institution to encourage local area development is only now being recognized. The existing literature recognizes the spillover effect of mainly university research on local industrial productivity and innovations at the national level. The impact of various university activities on numerous other local economic development indicators like per capita income, poverty, school enrollments etc., at county level has not been attempted. That is, the impact of a university on the local economic development beyond industry research and development and the interaction between the major institutions in this context-namely, university, local business, local community and government remains unexplored. The identification of these interactions have the potential to guide policy makers in devising economic policies and formulating budgetary plans. To extend the existing literature, this research develops a static general equilibrium model of the local economy to assess the impact of diverse activities of West Virginia University, using the holistic approach suggested by Hoffman and Hill (2009) and other existing literature. The analysis is based on the county level data of West Virginia for 55 counties over the period of seven years from 2001-2007. The study controls for other influencing factors on economic development like community, industry and government. Based on previous studies, the analysis identifies spatial dependence as a factor of university spillovers to local areas. Thus, the study uses both spatial and non-spatial models for analysis. The non-spatial models employed consist of Least Square Dummy Variable regression (LSDV), Fixed Effects Panel Regression and Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) Panel Fixed Effects Model. Following Elhorst's (2010) testing procedure, the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) is employed for spatial analysis. The results are interpreted for policy analysis considering the limitations of the model and the available data. The results find positive university spillover on the economic development indicators: Per Capita Income, Poverty, Public School Enrollment, Patents, Industrial Wages and Earnings. The empirical models estimated in this study identify the various channels through which a university impacts the local economy. The study concludes, the impact of West Virginia University has a significant influence on all the economic development parameters measured in this analysis. This positive stimulus will be larger with greater industrial collaborations in terms of research. Furthermore, broader government support in terms of grants for high-tech research and development and providing a positive economic environment for fortifying industrial connections will result in sustainable eco...

Theoretical Insights into the Hydrogenation of alpha,beta-Unsaturated Ketones and Aldehydes to Unsaturated Alcohols over Supported Metal Catalysts

“…It has been proposed that the protic solvent can influence the kinetics of reactions that proceed in reactions involving polar or charged transition states by stabilizing the resulting charges [28,31,32,53]. This has been confirmed in theoretical studies which show that water can offer increased hydrogen bonding in the transition state which can lower the activation energy by 20 kJ mol −1 [31,67] or by solvating the anions and cations that form in heterolytic reactions. Water can not only influence the activation energies of elementary steps but in some cases can also directly participate in the reaction and behave as a co-catalyst offering new and preferred reaction channels.…”

“…Water can efficiently shuttle protons and when coupled with the metal surface offers a conduit for efficiently carrying out proton-coupled-electron transfer paths which are pervasive throughout nature. We have shown previously that proton transfer can readily occur through a chain of water molecules in the hydrogenation of saturated ketones [31,67], which may help to rationalize the increased activity and selectivity for the hydrogenation of ketones in water.…”

“…As was discussed, water is significantly better than alcohols and alkanes in the hydrogenation of carbonyls, as it can more efficiently stabilize the transition states and allow for facile proton shuttling paths via the formation of very effective 3D hydrogen-bonding networks [31,67]. Recent studies indicate that the mixed alcohol/water solvents were reported to enhance the hydrogenation of 2-butanone over Pd catalysts, as compared to pure alcohol solvents [101].…”

“…The proton shuttling mechanism critically depends on the hydrogen-bonding network that forms to stabilize the transition state and enable facile proton transfer and shuttling [31,67]. The average number of hydrogen bonds per molecule in the IPA-water mixtures has been reported to decrease with a decreasing water mole fraction [31,54].…”

“…We start with the simplest unsaturated ketone, methyl vinyl ketone (MVK) and use first principle density [65] and the presence of solvents [28,32,66,67] that related to the difference between idealized environments examined herein and the actual catalytic systems can contribute to the differences in reported reaction energetics.…”