The Role of Transportation Speed in Facilitating High Skilled Teamwork

Xiaofang Dong (), Siqi Zheng and Matthew Kahn

No 24539, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: High skilled workers gain from face to face interactions. If the skilled can move at higher speeds, then knowledge diffusion and idea spillovers are likely to reach greater distances. This paper uses the construction of China’s high speed rail (HSR) network as a natural experiment to test this claim. HSR connects major cities, that feature the nation’s best universities, to secondary cities. Since bullet trains reduce cross-city commute times, they reduce the cost of face-to-face interactions between skilled workers who work in different cities. Using a data base listing research paper publication and citations, we document a complementarity effect between knowledge production and the transportation network. Co-authors’ productivity rises and more new co-author pairs emerge when secondary cities are connected by bullet train to China’s major cities.

JEL-codes: O15 O31 R4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-lab, nep-tre and nep-ure
Note: EEE LS PE POL PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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