This thread seems to have few comments on the article and several on the title. It's not an HN survey, it's an article regarding a research paper [1].
IMO -- this kind of data could/should benefit teachers and researchers who want to argue that their benefit to society isn't reflected in the existing high school/undergrad/graduate metrics. Instead of paying teachers/researchers the wage that reflects an equilibrium between available supply and job demand, maybe we could offer something that offsets their (positive) externality. I suppose it only makes sense for public schools since private entities aren't focused on things like this. But there's a lot of debate over public school funding and this seems like a great input to that debate.