Survey Estimates Stanford University's Innovation and Entrepreneurial Impact. (November 15, 2012)

A 100 page survey published last month: Stanford University’s Economic Impact via Innovation and Entrepreneurship

by

Charles E. Eesley, Assistant Professor in Management Science & Engineering; and Morgenthaler Faculty Fellow, School of Engineering, Stanford University

and

William F. Miller, Herbert Hoover Professor of Public and Private Management Emeritus; Professor of Computer Science Emeritus and former Provost, Stanford University and Faculty Co-director, SPRIE

describes the results of a large-scale, systematic survey of Stanford alumni and faculty conducted in 2011. It estimates that 39,900 active companies can trace their roots to Stanford. If these companies collectively formed an independent nation, its estimated economy would be the world’s 10^th largest. Extrapolating from survey results, those companies have created an estimated 5.4 million jobs and generate annual world revenues of $2.7 trillion.

Australia's 2011 GDP is estimated at $1.57 trillion.

Mightn't it be sensible before devising ad hoc methods to estimate economic impact of proposed university research to determine just what our universities' economic impact has been over the past decades before mucking them about?

Just a thought in passing.