How Do Travel Costs Shape Collaboration?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Catalini, Christian; Fons-Rosen, Christian; Gaule, Patrick
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California Merced; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); University of Bath; IZA Institute Labor Economics
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2019.3381
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 3340-3360
• 关键词: SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION; geographic frictions; temporary colocation; face-to-face meetings; recombinations of ideas; travel costs

摘要

We develop a simple theoretical framework for thinking about how geographic frictions, and in particular travel costs, shape scientists' collaboration decisions and the types of projects that are developed locally versus over distance. We then take advantage of a quasi-experiment-the introduction of new routes by a low-cost airline-to test the predictions of the theory. Results show that travel costs constitute an important friction to collaboration: after a low-cost airline enters, the number of collaborations increases between 0.3 and 1.1 times, a result that is robust to multiple falsification tests and causal in nature. The reduction in geographic frictions is particularly beneficial for high-quality scientists that are otherwise embedded in worse local environments. Consistent with the theory, lower travel costs also endogenously change the types of projects scientists engage in at different levels of distance. After the shock, we observe an increase in higher-quality and novel projects, as well as projects that take advantage of complementary knowledge and skills between subfields, and that rely on specialized equipment. We test the generalizability of our findings from chemistry to a broader data set of scientific publications and to a different field where specialized equipment is less likely to be relevant, mathematics. Last, we discuss implications for the formation of collaborative research and development teams over distance.