ICT, Collaboration, and Innovation: Evidence from BITNET

Kathrin Wernsdorf, Markus Nagler and Martin Watzinger

No 17179, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Does access to technologies that reduce information and communication costs increase innovation? We examine this question by exploiting the staggered adoption of BITNET across U.S. universities in the 1980s. BITNET, an early version of the Internet, enabled e-mail-based knowledge exchange and collaboration among academics. After the adoption of BITNET, university-connected inventors increase patenting substantially. The effects are driven by collaborative patents by new inventor teams. The patents induced by ICT are closely related to science. In contrast, we neither find an effect on patents not closely related to science nor on corporate inventors unconnected to universities.

Date: 2022-04
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Journal Article: ICT, collaboration, and innovation: Evidence from BITNET (2022)
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