The universe of knowledge is vast. Is there any rhyme or reason to searching through it? What kind of knowledge is most likely to be useful for an innovator?

This is a big literature, but today I want to look at three papers that use different metrics to suggest knowledge which is distinct but close to your existing knowledge tends to be most useful.

This is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Adjacent Knowledge is Useful, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles mentioned
Lane, Jacqueline N., Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva Guinan, and Karim R. Lakhani. 2020. Engineering Serendipity: When does knowledge sharing lead to knowledge production? Strategic Management Journal: https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3256

Clancy, Matthew, Paul Heisey, Yongjie Ji, and GianCarlo Moschini. 2020. The Roots of Agricultural Innovation: Patent Evidence of Knowledge Spillovers. NBER Working Paper 27011. https://doi.org/10.3386/w27011

Cornelius, Philpp B., Bilal Gokpinar, and Fabian J. Sting. 2020. Sparking Manufacturing Innovation: How Temporary Interplant Assignments Increase Employee Idea Values. Management Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2020.3673

 It’s long been assumed that the best sorts of innovation happen when smart people work in an environment where spontaneous face-to-face interaction is the norm. Importantly, if that’s true, it implies the widespread transition to more remote work - where spontaneous face-to-face interaction is not possible - poses a threat to innovation. In this podcast, I want to look at a case study for a sector that:

• engages in frontier knowledge work
• has strong incentives to adopt practices that produce better outcomes
• has been well studied
• has increasingly moved to a model of remote collaboration

I am talking, of course, about academia.

This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article An example of successful innovation by distributed teams: academia, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles Mentioned:
Agrawal, Ajay, John McHale, and Alexander Oettl. 2015. Collaboration, Stars, and the Changing Organization of Science: Evidence from Evolutionary Biology. In The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy, eds. Adam B. Jaffe and Benjamin F. Jones, pgs. 75-102. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c13038

Freeman, Richard B., Ina Ganguli, Raviv Murciano-Goroff. 2015. Why and Wherefore of Increased Scientific Collaboration. In The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy, eds. Adam B. Jaffe and Benjamin F. Jones, pgs. 17-48. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c13040

Clancy, Matthew. 2020. The Case for Remote Work. The Entrepreneurs Network Briefing Paper. 

Agrawal, Ajay, John McHale, and Alexander Oettl. 2017. How stars matter: Recruiting and peer effects in evolutionary biology. Research Policy 46(4): 853-867. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2017.02.007

Dubois, Pierre, Jean-Charles Rochet, and Jean-Marc Schlenker. 2014. Productivity and mobility in academic research: evidence from mathematicians. Scientometrics 98: 1669-1701. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1112-7

Waldinger, Fabian. 2012. Peer Effects in Science: Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany. The Review of Economic Studies 79(2): 838-861. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdr029

Waldinger, Fabian. 2016. Bombs, Brains, and Science: The Role of Human and Physical Capital for the Creation of Scientific Knowledge. The Review of Economics and Statistics 98(5): 811-831. https://doi.org/10.1162/REST_a_00565

Azoulay, Pierre, Joshua S. Graff Zivin, and Jialan Wang. 2010. Superstar Extinction. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 125(2): 549-589. https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2010.125.2.549

Kim, E. Han, Adair Morse, and Luigi Zingales. 2009. Are elite universities losing their competitive edge? Journal of Financial Economics 93(3): 353-381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2008.09.007

Head, Keith, Yao Amber Li, and Asier Minondo. 2019. Geography, Ties, and Knowledge Flows: Evidence from Citations in Mathematics. The Review of Economics and Statistics 101(4): 713-727. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00771

Hellmanzik, Christiane, and Lukas Kuld. 2021. No place like ho

How, exactly, should you increase your R&D spending? One kind of program seems to work and would be an excellent candidate for more funds: the US’ Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and the European Union’s SME instrument (which was modeled on the SBIR).

This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article An Example of High Returns to Publicly Funded R&D, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles mentioned:
Howell, Sabrina T. 2017. Financing Innovation: Evidence from R&D grants. American Economics Review 107(4): 1136-1164. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150808

Santoleri, Pietro and Mina, Andrea and Di Minin, Alberto and Martelli, Irene. 2020. The Causal Effects of R&D Grants: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity. SSRN working paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3637867

Wang, Yanbo, Jizhen Li, and Jeffrey L. Furman. 2017. Firm performance and state innovation funding: Evidence from China’s Innofund program. Research Policy 46(6): 1142-1161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2017.05.001

Myers, Kyle, and Lauren Lanahan. 2021. Estimating spillovers from publicly funded R&D: Evidence from the US Department of Energy. Working paper. 

Maybe one of the most important functions of cities is to introduce us to new people. Being close seems to be very important for initiating and consolidating new relationships, but once those relationships are formed it’s no longer so important that you stay physically close - at least from the perspective of facilitating innovation.

This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Why Proximity Matters: Who You Know, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles mentioned:
Catalini, Christian. 2018. Microgeography and the Direction of Inventive Activity. Management Science 64(9): 4348-4364. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2798

Agrawal, Ajay, Iain Cockburn and John McHale. 2006. Gone but not forgotten: knowledge flows, labor mobility, and enduring social relationships. Journal of Economic Geography 6: 571-591. https://doi:10.1093/jeg/1b1016

Miguelez, Ernest, and Claudia Noumedem Temgoua. 2020. Inventor migration and knowledge flows: A two-way communication channel? Research Policy 49(9): 103914. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2019.103914

Head, Keith, Yao Amber Li, Asier Minondo. 2019. Geography, Ties, and Knowledge Flows: Evidence from Citations in Mathematics. Review of Economic Studies 104(4): 713-727. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00771

Freeman, Richard B., Ina Ganguli, and Raviv Murciano-Goroff. 2015. Why and Wherefore of Increased Scientific Collaboration. Chapter in The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy, eds. Adam B. Jaffe and Benjamin F. Jones: 17-48. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226286860.003.0002

Innovation disproportionately happens in cities. What is it about packing people together that makes them so innovative?

This is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Urban Social Infrastructure and Innovation, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles mentioned:
Carlino, Gerald A., Satyajit Chatterjee, and Robert M. Hunt. 2007. Urban density and the rate of invention. Journal of Urban Economics 61(3): 389-419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2006.08.003

Berkes, Enrico, and Ruben Gaetani. 2020. The Geography of Unconventional Innovation. The Economic Journalueaa111. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueaa111

Roche, Maria P. 2020. Taking Innovation to the Streets: Microgeography, Physical Structure, and Innovation. The Review of Economics and Statistics 102(5): 912-928. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00866

Andrews, Michael. 2019. Bar Talk: Informal Social Interactions, Alcohol Prohibition, and Invention. Available at SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3489466

When a scientist or inventor migrates, they take their knowledge with them. And in the right environment, that knowledge can act as the seed of something much larger than an individual can accomplish.

This is an audio read through of the (initial draft of the) article Importing Knowledge, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles Mentioned:
Moser, Petra, Alessandra Voena, and Fabian Waldinger. 2014. German Jewish Émigrés and US Invention. American Economic Review 104(10): 3222-55. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.104.10.3222

Ferrucci, Edoardo. 2020. Migration, innovation and technological diversion: German patenting after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Research Policy 49(9): 104057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2020.104057

Choudhury, Prithwiraj, and Do Yoon Kim. 2018. The ethnic migrant inventor effect: Codification and recombination of knowledge across borders. Strategic Management Journal 40(2): 203-229. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2977

Bahar, Dany, Prithwiraj Choudhury, and Hillel Rapoport. 2020. Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations. Research Policy 49(9): 103947. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2020.103947

Bernstein, Shai, Rebecca Diamond, Timothy McQuade and Beatriz Pousada. 2019. The contribution of high-skilled immigrants to innovation in the United States. Working Paper. 

Ganguli, Ina. 2015. Immigration and Ideas: What did Russian scientists “bring” to the United States? Journal of Labor Economics 33(S1P2). https://doi.org/10.1086/679741

Sometimes obvious ideas work. If you want to encourage more innovation, give people better access to knowledge: libraries.

This is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Free Knowledge and Innovation, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles mentioned:
Berkes, Enrico, and Peter Nencka. 2020. Knowledge Access: The Effects of Carnegie Libraries on Innovation. Working Paper.

Furman, Jeffrey L., Markus Nagler, and Martin Watzinger. 2018. Disclosure and Subsequent Innovation: Evidence from the Patent Depository Library Program. NBER Working Paper No 24660

Thompson, Neil C., and Douglas Hanley. 2020. Science is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial. MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 5238-17

Two different lines of evidence suggest 20 years is a good rule of thumb for how long it takes to go from science to technology: statistical correlations between R&D and productivity, and citations between patents and scientific articles.

This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article How long does it take to go from science to technology?, published in New Things Under the Sun.

Articles mentioned:
Adams, James D. 1990. Fundamental stocks of knowledge and productivity growth. Journal of Political Economy 98(4): 673-702. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2937764

Baldos, Uris Lantz, Frederi G. Viens, Thomas W. Hertel, and Keith O. Fuglie. 2018. R&D spending, knowledge capital, and agricultural productivity growth: a Bayesian approach. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 101(1): 291-310. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aay039

Marx, Matt, and Aaron Fuegi. 2020. Reliance on science: Worldwide front-page patent citations to scientific articles. Strategic Management Journal 41(9): 1572-1594. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3145

Marx, Matt, and Aaron Fuegi. 2020. Reliance on science by inventors: hybrid extraction of in-text patent-to-article citations. NBER Working Paper 27987. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3718899

Arora, Ashish, Sharon Belenzon, and Lia Sheer. 2017. Back to basics: why do firms invest in research? NBER Working Paper 23187. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2920404

Watzinger, Martin, and Monika Schnitzer. 2019. Standing on the Shoulders of Science. CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP13766. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3401853

Ahmadpoor, Mohammad, and Benjamin F. Jones. 2017. The Dual Frontier: Patented inventions and prior scientific advance. Science357(6351): 583-587. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam9527

How did we end up in a situation where so many scientific papers do not replicate? One theory, is that the publish-or-perish system is to blame.

This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Publish-or-perish and the Quality of Science, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles mentioned
Smaldino, Paul E., and Richard McElreath. 2016. The natural selection of bad science. Royal Society of Open Science 3: 160384. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160384

Hill, Ryan, and Carolyn Stein. 2021. Race to the bottom: competition and quality in science. Working paper.

Partha, Dasgupta and Paul A. David. 1994. Towards a new economics of science. Research Policy 23(5): 487-521. https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-7333(94)01002-1

Bikard,Michaël. 2018. Made in academia: the effect of institutional origin on inventors’ attention to science. Organization Science 29(5): 755-987. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2018.1206

How do scientists and inventors decide what kinds of projects are interesting and valuable? Likely their individual life experiences influence these judgments, and one place we can see this is in the different research choices of men and women.

This podcast is an audio readthrough of the (initial version of the) article Gender and What Gets Researched, published on New Things Under the Sun.

Articles Mentioned:
West, Jevin D., Jennifer Jacquet, Molly M. King, Shelley J. Correll, and Carl T. Bergstrom. 2013. The role of gender in scholarly authorship. PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066212

Koning, Rembrand, Sampsa Samila, and John-Paul Ferguson. 2021. Who do we invent for? Patents by women focus more on women’s health, but few women get to invent. Science 372 (6548). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba6990

Einiö, Elias, Josh Feng, and Xavier Jarvel. 2019. Social Push and the Direction of Innovation. SSRN Working Paper. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3383703

Nielsen, Mathias Wullum, Jens Peter Andersen, Londa Schiebinger, and Jesper W. Schneider. 2017. One and a half million medical papers reveal a link between author gender and attention to gender and sex analysis. Nature Human Behavior 1: 791-796. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0235-x

Truffa, Francesca, and Ashley Wong. 2021. Undergraduate Gender Diversity and Direction of Scientific Research. PhD Job Market Paper.

Holman, Luke, Devi Stuart-Fox, and Cindy E. Hauser. 2018. The gender gap in science: How long until women are equally represented? PLOS Biology https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2004956