Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18031
Authors: Thor Berger; Erik Prawitz
Abstract: Why has collaboration become increasingly central to technological progress? We document the role of lowered travel costs by combining patent data with the rollout of the Swedish railroad network in the 19th and early-20th century. Inventors that gain access to the network are more likely to produce collaborative patents, which is partly driven by long-distance collaborations with other inventors residing along the emerging railroad network. These results suggest that the declining costs of interacting with others is fundamental to account for the long-term increase in inventive collaboration.
Keywords: innovation; collaboration; transport infrastructure; railroads
JEL Codes: O31; O18; L91
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Establishment of a connection to the railroad network (L92) | Increases the probability that at least one inventor in a municipality becomes involved in a collaborative patent granted by the Swedish Patent Office (O36) |
| Establishment of a connection to the railroad network (L92) | Number of collaborations per inventor (O36) |
| Increased collaboration (O36) | Driven by independent inventors rather than firms (O31) |
| Increased collaboration (O36) | Long-distance collaborations become more prevalent (O36) |
| Expansion of the railroad network (R49) | Collaborations increasingly involve inventors from different municipalities (O36) |
| Increase in collaboration (O36) | Primarily observed in rural areas (R19) |