Restructuring Research: Communication Costs and the Democratization of University Innovation / Ajay K. Agrawal, Avi Goldfarb.

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Agrawal, Ajay K

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w12812.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2006.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences • Diffusion Processes
R11 - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
Z13 - Economic Sociology • Economic Anthropology • Language • Social and Economic Stratification

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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.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w12812 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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December 2006.

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.