Study: Harvard bolsters Boston
School's spending helped shield city during downturn
Harvard University boosts the local economy by $3.4 billion a year, and is directly or indirectly responsible for providing the Boston area with more than 48,000 jobs, according to a study commissioned by the university.
The report says the university, like the others in Boston, helped insulate the city from the recent economic downturn by providing a steady job base that grew 17 percent between 1992 and 2002. "Harvard has played a big stabilizing role," said Mary Power, senior director of community relations at Harvard.
The university released a similar report in 1999, and last year eight major research institutions in the Boston area collaborated on a study that said their combined annual economic impact was about $7.4 billion. Harvard accounted for at least 35 percent of that at the time, and has continued to grow rapidly, according to the author of both studies.
The new study, conducted by an independent research company, provides valuable public-relations ammunition for Harvard in its plans to build a new campus on its 200 acres of land in Allston. Though still on the drawing board, the Allston proposal is expected to cost several billion dollars and almost certainly generate years of neighborhood disputes.
"We would hope that some of the advantage of what Harvard brings would be kept in mind as the needs for renovations and new development emerge," said Kevin Casey, senior director of federal and state relations, who is Harvard's chief lobbyist.
The new study will be officially unveiled by president Lawrence H. Summers today at a breakfast hosted by the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a business trade group.
In 2002, the year on which the study's data are based, Harvard employed about 16,000 people, but the report says the university is responsible for many more jobs in the metropolitan Boston area.
It attributes almost 17,000 jobs to the ripple effects of Harvard's spending on goods, services, and construction, as well as the spending of Harvard employees. Spending by students and visitors to campus spurs the creation of nearly 3,000 more jobs. Finally, companies based on technology licensed from Harvard, or started by Harvard faculty or graduates, employ more than 12,000 people.
This accounts for 2.2 percent of the region's employment base, according to Hugh O'Neill, the author of the study at Appleseed, a New York economic research firm, which also conducted last year's study of the eight universities.
The $3.4 billion in economic impact accounted for about 1 percent of regional economic output in 2002, O'Neill said. That figure does not include outside companies with links to Harvard or spending by students and visitors.
As a nonprofit, the school is largely exempt from property taxes, and like other universities it has come under fire for occupying otherwise taxable real estate. The university paid $23.4 million in taxes and other direct payments to local cities and towns in 2002, but the report said that the school generated, directly or indirectly, a total of $162 million in revenue for state and local governments.
Cambridge Mayor Michael A. Sullivan is trying to push Harvard to increase the payments it makes to Cambridge. Last year, Harvard paid Cambridge about $1.8 million. But Sullivan said it would be foolish not to be grateful for what Harvard offers the community. He used the example of
"Without the magic of the university we could easily be the Silicon Valley right now, where it's being decimated by the current economy. We are in many ways able to stay afloat in this economy because of the presence of these two leading academic institutions," he said, referring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.
Harvard spends more than $7 within the Boston area for every one dollar it gets from local sources, the report said. It spent $522 million on research in 2002, and its teaching hospitals and research centers brought in another $750 million in federal research funds.
The study, which cost Harvard a little more than $30,000 to produce, highlights the role of Harvard in laying the groundwork for business. Some start-ups are based on technology developed at Harvard, like
Some in the community, though, still worry that Harvard's rapid growth has a cost. Robert Van Meter, executive director of the Allston Brighton Community Development Corp., is concerned about the loss of well-paying industrial jobs not only on Harvard's land in Allston, but throughout the region.
"Harvard definitely has a case to make for its positive impact on the local economy, but the city of Boston needs to insure that Boston residents still have access to the kinds of jobs that Harvard's growth may displace," he said.
Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com.
