Economies of Scale and Scope in Internationalisation: Evidence from Chinese Universities

Globalisation has reached every corner of the world in the 21st century. Recognising this opportunity, China’s official education strategy, “The National Outline for Medium- and Long-Term Educational Reform and Development (2010–2020)”, proposed a series of policies to promote internationalisation of education, including attracting more international students to study in Chinese universities. Although international students can bring benefits to Chinese universities, they inevitably also increase costs. Does recruiting more international students actually influence the cost efficiency of Chinese universities? By employing the flexible fixed cost quadratic function to estimate economies of scale and scope in internationalisation, this article attempts to provide pilot answers to the question. The empirical results suggest that there are both economies of scale and economies of scope in recruiting international students. This suggests that Chinese high-level universities should recruit more international students to align with the national strategy.