University of Chicago Press How the Financial Crisis and Great Recession Affected Higher Education (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report)

The recent financial crisis had a profound effect on both public and private universities, which faced shrinking endowments, declining charitable contributions, and reductions in government support. Universities responded to these stresses in different ways. This volume presents new evidence on the nature of these responses and how the incentives and constraints facing different institutions affected their behavior. The contributors look at the role of endowments in university finances and the interaction of spending policies, asset allocation strategies, and investment opportunities to show how universities' behavior can be modeled using economic principles.