高等教育扩张与企业组织

Policy Research Working Paper Higher Education Expansion Xavier CireraMarcio CruzAntonio Martins-Neto Finance, Competitiveness and InvestmentGlobal Department A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11216 Abstract labor supply led to a rise in the proportion of college-ed-ucated workers within firms in the treated microregions.This increase was accompanied by an increased prob-abilityof firms adding knowledge hierarchies, followed by a risein productivity and an increased likelihood of export. Thefindings suggest that policies affecting the cost and accessi- This paper investigates the impact of higher educationexpansion on firm performance in developing countries.It focuses on the significant expansion of higher educa-tion in Brazil between 2000 and 2012, which substantiallyincreased higher education enrollment and graduation rates, This paper is a product of the Finance, Competitiveness and Investment Global Department. It is part of a larger effortby the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussionsaround the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and HigherEducationExpansionandFirmOrganization XavierCirera1,MarcioCruz2,andAntonioMartins-Neto1TheWorldBank2IFC 1Introduction Management and firm organization qualities are critical determinants of firms’ productivitygrowth (Ichniowski and Shaw, 2009; Bloom and Van Reenen, 2007). High-skilled profession-als can implement management practices that are more conducive to raising productivity,for example, by introducing better incentives to workers that increase their performance(Lazear, 2000) or better organizational structures to accumulate and enhance the use of The relatively low supply of higher education graduates is an important factor explainingthe scarcity of qualified professionals in developing countries. For example, Dahlstrand et al. (2025) find that proximity to schools offering business degrees increases the likelihood ofhaving better quality CEOs, that are associated with higher productivity. This paper usesa quasi-natural experiment in Brazil to explore the link between higher education expansion Our starting point is the theory of knowledge-based hierarchies developed by Garicano (2000), Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg (2006) and Caliendo and Rossi-Hansberg (2012). Ac-cording to this framework, firms not only utilize capital and labor but also rely on workers’knowledge to solve problems of varying complexity. As firms expand production or integrate However, acquiring knowledge is costly, and even the most knowledgeable workers arelimited by time and can only address a few complex problems. To overcome this constraintand enhance problem-solving capabilities, firms may implement changes in their organiza-tional structure. In particular, firms may establish a knowledge-based hierarchy structure in Empirical studies, such as Caliendo and Rossi-Hansberg (2012) in France, Cruz et al. (2018) in Brazil, and Caliendo et al. (2020) in Portugal have introduced the concept oflayers of employees using hierarchical occupational categories. They demonstrate that firmsorganize knowledge in a pyramid shaped hierarchy and add more layers as they grow larger.Adding new layers allows workers to specialize in more specific tasks, increases monitoring, and facilitates the efficient use of knowledge by reallocating exceptional problems to a fewindividuals instead of incurring the cost of qualifying all production workers. These changes Yet, recruiting skilled professionals can pose significant challenges and expenses, espe-cially in emerging economies with a shortage of college-educated workers.3When companies struggle to find the right talent to expand their workforce, they may settle for organizationalstructures that do not fully utilize their existing knowledge pool. For instance, research by Hjort et al. (2022) demonstrates that the growth of modern sectors in developing countries is hampered by the high relative cost of hiring managers, which is often linked to lowereducational levels and the emigration of highly skilled workers.Similarly, Engbom et al. Thus, one hypothesis is that policies affecting the cost and accessibility of hiring profes-sionals