Tools or Toys? The Impact of High Technology on Scholarly Productivity / Daniel S. Hamermesh, Sharon M. Oster.

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Hamermesh, Daniel S

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w6761.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1998.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: Toys. The impact of computers on productivity has been examined directly on macro data and indirectly (on wages) using microeconomic data. This study examines the direct impact on the productivity of scholarship by considering how high technology might alter patterns of coauthoring of articles in economics and their influence. Using all coauthored articles in three major economics journals from 1970-79 and 1992-96, we find: 1) Sharp growth in the percentage of distant coauthorships (those between authors who were not in the same metropolitan areas in the four years prior to publication), as the theory predicts. Contrary to the theory: 2) Lower productivity (in terms of subsequent citations) of distant than close-coauthored papers; and 3) No decline in their relative disadvantage between the 1970s and 1990s. These findings are reconciled by the argument that high-technology functions as a consumption rather than an investment good. As such, it can be welfare-increasing without increasing productivity.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w6761 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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October 1998.

Toys. The impact of computers on productivity has been examined directly on macro data and indirectly (on wages) using microeconomic data. This study examines the direct impact on the productivity of scholarship by considering how high technology might alter patterns of coauthoring of articles in economics and their influence. Using all coauthored articles in three major economics journals from 1970-79 and 1992-96, we find: 1) Sharp growth in the percentage of distant coauthorships (those between authors who were not in the same metropolitan areas in the four years prior to publication), as the theory predicts. Contrary to the theory: 2) Lower productivity (in terms of subsequent citations) of distant than close-coauthored papers; and 3) No decline in their relative disadvantage between the 1970s and 1990s. These findings are reconciled by the argument that high-technology functions as a consumption rather than an investment good. As such, it can be welfare-increasing without increasing productivity.