Impacto da universidade pública no índice de desenvolvimento humano de municípios no Estado do Paraná

Abstract

The University is one of the actors capable of socioeconomically developing a region and the municipal human development index (MHDI) is the most used indicator in the world to measure municipal development. This article evaluates the impact of the installation of a public university in the MHDI of the municipalities of Paraná, Brazil. The first 20 municipalities were selected in the MHDI ranking in 1991. Of these, 15 cities didn’t have a public university and were selected to follow the variation in the ranking of the MHDI from 1991 to 2010. In this period, 6 of the 15 cities received a public university and 9 others didn’t. Statistical analysis has shown that the variation in the MHDI between cities with and without a public university is representative. All cities that received public universities remained among the top 20 MHDI in 2010, while 44.4% of cities that didn’t receive remained in this list. It appears that a public university can directly or indirectly influence the dimensions of the MHDI (income, longevity and education) and, therefore, the index as a whole. The trend is that the top 20 positions in the next ranking are from cities with a public university.