An approach to the determination of the total economic impact of an HEI in a deprived region of northern Portugal

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to describe the study that is being conducted in the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (IPB). The main objective of this study is to determine the total economic impact of the institution in the hosting regions. To achieve that, we used the traditional or economic-base approach and the skill-base approach. From the traditional approach, based in the Caffrey and Isaacs’s impact model, we obtained the direct economic impact of the IPB. From the skill-base approach we are currently estimating the human capital that is directly linked to the IPB. We expect to determine the total economic impact of the IPB and how a change in its local demand will affect the economy of the surrounding regions, and also what is the higher education institutions’ impact on the individuals and how it will affect their lifelong earnings.