Showing 1 - 10 of 16
We investigate the causes and consequences of the aging of the scientific workforce. Using novel data on the population of US chemistry faculty members over fifty years, we find that the secular increase in the age of the academic workforce has been mainly driven by the slowdown in faculty...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014377268
We test how a reduction in travel cost affects the rate and direction of scientific research. Using a fine-grained, scientist-level dataset within chemistry (1991-2012), we find that after Southwest Airlines enters a new route, scientific collaboration increases by 50%, an effect that is...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011479415
The advancement of the knowledge frontier is crucial for technological innovation and human progress. Using novel data from the setting of mathematics, this paper establishes two results. First, we document that individuals who demonstrate exceptional talent in their teenage years have an...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011984537
We investigate whether excessively optimistic beliefs may play a role in the persistent demand for doctoral and post-doctoral training in science. We elicit the beliefs and career preferences of doctoral students through a novel survey and randomize the provision of structured information on the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012270153
We investigate whether having an advisor of the same gender is correlated with the productivity of PhD science students and their propensity to stay in academic science. Our analysis is based on an original dataset covering nearly 20,000 PhD graduates and their advisors from U.S. chemistry...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011744540
This paper studies the impact of U.S. immigration barriers on global knowledge production. We present four key findings. First, among Nobel Prize winners and Fields Medalists, migrants to the U.S. play a central role in the global knowledge network – representing 20-33% of the frontier...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012497917
To examine the drivers of innovation, this paper studies the global R&D effort to fight the deadliest diseases and presents four results. We find: (1) global pharmaceutical R&D activity – measured by clinical trials – typically follows the 'law of diminishing efforts': i.e. the elasticity of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012497980
We present a factor-proportions trade model in which heterogeneous firms can offshore intermediate inputs subject to fixed offshoring costs. In the skill-abundant country, high-productivity firms offshore a larger range of labor-intensive inputs to the labor-abundant countries than...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011388202
We quantify the causal effect of foreign investment on total factor productivity (TFP) using a new global firm-level database. Our identification strategy relies on exploiting the difference in the amount of foreign investment by financial and industrial investors and simultaneously controlling...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010326288
We study the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on total factor productivity (TFP) of domestic firms using a new, representative firm-level data set spanning six countries. A novel finding is that firm-level spillovers from foreign firms to domestic companies can be significantly...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011819471