Working Paper: NBER ID: w19694
Authors: Ajay Agrawal; Avi Goldfarb; Florenta Teodoridis
Abstract: We conduct the first empirical test of the knowledge burden hypothesis, one of several theories advanced to explain increasing team sizes in science. For identification, we exploit the collapse of the USSR as an exogenous shock to the knowledge frontier causing a sudden release of previously hidden research. We report evidence that team size increased disproportionately in Soviet-rich relative to -poor subfields of theoretical mathematics after 1990. Furthermore, consistent with the hypothesized mechanism, scholars in Soviet-rich subfields disproportionately increased citations to Soviet prior art and became increasingly specialized.
Keywords: knowledge accumulation; collaboration; knowledge burden hypothesis; Soviet Union; theoretical mathematics
JEL Codes: J24; L23; O31; O33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| collapse of the Soviet Union (P27) | outward shift in the knowledge frontier in theoretical mathematics (D80) |
| outward shift in the knowledge frontier in theoretical mathematics (D80) | increase in collaboration rates among nonsoviet researchers in 'soviet-rich' subfields (F55) |
| collapse of the Soviet Union (P27) | increase in team size in 'soviet-rich' subfields (P32) |
| collapse of the Soviet Union (P27) | increase in degree of specialization among researchers in 'soviet-rich' fields (P29) |
| collapse of the Soviet Union (P27) | increased citation of Soviet prior art in 'soviet-rich' fields (P30) |