Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Restructuring Research: Communication Costs and the Democratization of University Innovation

Contents:

Author Info

  • Ajay K. Agrawal
  • Avi Goldfarb

Abstract

We report evidence indicating that Bitnet adoption facilitated increased research collaboration between US universities. However, not all institutions benefited equally. Using panel data from seven top engineering journals, Bitnet connection records, and a variety of institution ranking data, we find that medium-ranked universities were the primary beneficiaries; they benefited largely by increasing their collaboration with top-ranked schools. Furthermore, we find that the magnitude of this effect was greatest for co-located pairs. These results suggest that the most salient effect of lowering communication costs may have been to facilitate gains from trade through the specialization of research tasks. Thus, the advent of Bitnet -- and likely subsequent versions, including the Internet -- seems to have increased the role of second-tier universities in the national innovation system as producers of new, high-quality knowledge.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12812.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12812.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Dec 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12812

Note: PR
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Kremer, Michael, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 108(3), pages 551-75, August.
  2. Kim, E. Han & Morse, Adair & Zingales, Luigi, 2009. "Are elite universities losing their competitive edge?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 353-381, September.
  3. Tanya S. Rosenblat & Markus M. Mobius, 2004. "Getting Closer or Drifting Apart?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(3), pages 971-1009, August.
  4. Susan Athey & Scott Stern, 2000. "The Impact of Information Technology on Emergency Health Care Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 7887, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Jess Gaspar & Edward L. Glaeser, 1996. "Information Technology and the Future of Cities," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1756, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  6. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages S71-102, October.
  7. Adair Morse, 2006. "Are elite universities losing their competitive edge?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
  8. Rosenblat, Tanya & Mobius, Markus, 2004. "Getting Closer or Drifting Apart," Scholarly Articles 3043419, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  9. Susan Athey & Scott Stern, 2002. "The Impact of Information Technology on Emergency Health Care Outcomes," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(3), pages 399-432, Autumn.
  10. Jacques Mairesse & Laure Turner, 2005. "Measurement and Explanation of the Intensity of Co-publication in Scientific Research: An Analysis at the Laboratory Level," NBER Working Papers 11172, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Sharon M. Oster, 2002. "Tools or Toys? The Impact of High Technology on Scholarly Productivity," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 539-555, October.
  12. George P. Baker & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2003. "Make Versus Buy in Trucking: Asset Ownership, Job Design, and Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 551-572, June.
  13. Zucker, Lynne G & Darby, Michael R & Brewer, Marilynn B, 1998. "Intellectual Human Capital and the Birth of U.S. Biotechnology Enterprises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 290-306, March.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. RePEc and the democratization of research
    by Christian Zimmermann in RePEc blog on 2008-12-09 21:37:20
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Kim, E. Han & Morse, Adair & Zingales, Luigi, 2009. "Are elite universities losing their competitive edge?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 353-381, September.
  2. Winkler Anne E. & Glanzel Wolfang & Levin Sharon & Stephan Paula, 2011. "The Diffusion of Information Technology and the Increased Propensity of Teams to Transcend Institutional and National Borders," Dipartimento di Economia "S. Cognetti de Martiis" LEI & BRICK - Laboratorio di economia dell'innovazione "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio Carlo 201110, University of Turin.
  3. Grant C. Black & Paula E. Stephan, 2010. "The Economics of University Science and the Role of Foreign Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars," NBER Chapters, in: American Universities in a Global Market, pages 129-161 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes, 2013. "Do Large Departments Make Academics More Productive? Agglomeration and Peer Effects in Research," AMSE Working Papers 1326, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, Marseille, France, revised 10 Apr 2013.
  5. Prince, Jeffrey T. & Simon, Daniel H., 2009. "Has the Internet accelerated the diffusion of new products?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1269-1277, October.
  6. Rosell, Carlos & Agrawal, Ajay, 2009. "Have university knowledge flows narrowed?: Evidence from patent data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 1-13, February.
  7. Ajay K. Agrawal & Iain M. Cockburn & Alberto Galasso & Alexander Oettl, 2012. "Why are Some Regions More Innovative than Others? The Role of Firm Size Diversity," NBER Working Papers 17793, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Ding, Waverly W. & Levin, Sharon G. & Stephan, Paula E. & Winkler, Ann E., 2009. "The Impact of Information Technology on Scientists’ Productivity, Quality and Collaboration Patterns," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt80n3512q, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
  9. NAGAOKA, Sadao & IGAMI, Masatsura & WALSH, John P. & IJICHI, Tomohiro, 2011. "Knowledge Creation Process in Science: Key Comparative Findings from the Hitotsubashi-NISTEP-Georgia Tech Scientists' Survey in Japan and the US," IIR Working Paper 11-09, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University.
  10. Antonelli Cristiano & Geuna Aldo & Franzoni Chiara, 2010. "The Organization, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research. What we do know and what we don't know," Dipartimento di Economia "S. Cognetti de Martiis" LEI & BRICK - Laboratorio di economia dell'innovazione "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio Carlo 201004, University of Turin.
  11. Winkler, Anne E. & Levin, Sharon & Stephan, Paula & Glänzel, Wolfgang, 2011. "Publishing Trends in Economics across Colleges and Universities, 1991-2007," IZA Discussion Papers 6082, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  12. Fabian Waldinger, 2009. "Peer Effects in Science - Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany," CEP Discussion Papers dp0910, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  13. Waverly W. Ding & Sharon G. Levin & Paula E. Stephan & Anne E. Winkler, 2009. "The Impact of Information Technology on Scientists' Productivity, Quality and Collaboration Patterns," NBER Working Papers 15285, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. Chris Forman & Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2012. "From Wires to Partners: How the Internet Has Fostered R&D Collaborations Within Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1549-1568, August.
  15. Rachel Griffith & Helen Miller, 2011. "Innovation in China: the rise of Chinese inventors in the production of knowledge," IFS Working Papers W11/15, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12812

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.