This study quantitatively estimates the impacts of the partial privatization of Japanese national universities (as implemented in 2004) on research performance outcomes, which are aggregated and disaggregated across research fields. Japanese private universities can be viewed as counterfactuals not targeted by the reform for the same period, which provides within-country variations in this governance/managerial change. Difference-in-differences estimation strategies using private universities as control groups show that the partial privatization of national universities has resulted in a deterioration in the quality and quantity of national universities’ research output, as constructed using publication records from 1999 to 2009. The study then estimates the effects of partial privatization disaggregated by research field and finds that only medical science is negatively affected by the partial privatization. This study is the first to provide a quantitative assessment of whether the partial privatization of Japanese universities has been favorable for research performance using an identification strategy based on a quasi-experiment. It also reveals the heterogeneous impacts across research fields and departments.

本研究定量估计了日本国立大学部分私有化（于 2004 年实施）对研究绩效结果的影响，这些结果在研究领域中汇总和分解。日本私立大学可以被视为同期改革的反事实，这在这种治理/管理变革中提供了国家内部的差异。以私立大学为对照组的差异估计策略表明，使用 1999 年至 2009 年的出版记录构建的国立大学部分私有化导致国立大学研究产出的质量和数量下降。然后，该研究估计了按研究领域分类的部分私有化的影响，并发现只有医学科学会受到部分私有化的负面影响。本研究首次使用基于准实验的识别策略对日本大学的部分私有化是否有利于研究绩效进行定量评估。它还揭示了跨研究领域和部门的异质影响。