While a vast body of work has documented the importance of face-to-face interactions in science and innovation, the share of distributed teams in scientific research has steadily risen since ICT revolution of the 1990s.
Building on the simple intuition that some ideas are more important than others, Giorgio's work explores how the upsurge of remote collaboration has shaped innovation in scientific discovery. To distinguish between breakthroughs and incremental improvements, the researchers implemented a new method of classifying scientific publications according to their novelty or disruptiveness. Using a difference-in-difference design, they exploited instances in which colocated teams become distributed and compare the disruptiveness of their publications before and after the split, controlling for the characteristics of their research field. They documented a robust and significant negative impact of switching to a distributed model on breakthrough innovation. However, beginning in the 2010s, the negative impact tapers off and even becomes positive. They hypothesize that this reversal relates to improvements in key technologies needed for effective remote collaboration, including video conferencing and the cloud. Consistent with this view, they provide evidence that colocation matters less when the split involves team members in places with better broadband infrastructure.
This event is organised by the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School. Please contact events@inet.ox.ac.uk if you have any questions.
This seminar will be conducted through Zoom. Please register to join this seminar. You will then receive an email with the dial in details. Please check your spam/junk folders.
Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meetin...
Giorgio Presidente
Postdoctoral Research Officer, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Work
Giorgio Presidente is a Postdoctoral Research Officer on the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Work. He obtained his PhD from Paris School of Economics. His main area of specialisation is the interplay between legal institutions and technological change, with a focus on automation. He also works on topics related to firm-level resource reallocation, productivity and the impact of policy on economic development.
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