But there are other data points. Stanford's rise to prominence in the 1960's (people forget that for quite some time it was a tiny college with no notoriety at all) was driven by almost exactly this kind of thing: they came into a huge endowment and embarked on an affirmative program to recruit top-tier talent in a big list of fields. And it worked.

Obviously details matter. A university in Riyadh is going to be disadvantaged vs. one in Palo Alto, but the idea that professors can be encouraged to move by big paychecks shouldn't be controversial.

NYU has been been buying its way up the reputation ladder for the past 15 years.