DDRIE: Knowledge Access and Cumulative Innovation-Network Econometric Evidence from the Republic of Letters

本博士论文研究将使用研究者收集的独特的历史数据来研究科学知识流动对创新的影响。发达经济体的经济增长主要是由创新驱动的，这一过程依赖于以前的发现作为基本投入。因此，有效获取新产生的知识对经济增长至关重要。由于缺乏适当的数据，检验这一理论是困难的。研究者将利用英国和欧洲大陆在九年战争（1688-1697）和西班牙王位继承战争（1701-1714）之间的科学信息的恢复来开发一个引文索引，将早期的科学知识与早期的科学知识联系起来。然后，研究人员将使用这些数据来评估信息流如何影响之后的创新活动。此外，研究还将开发一种新的创新方法，使他们能够从知识交流到创新之间得出因果关系。该研究项目允许隔离由沟通渠道变化引起的创新效应。研究结果可以为设计有效的知识产权保护政策提供参考，从而保持美国在创新方面的全球领先地位。拟议的研究项目调查了在九年战争（1688-1697）和西班牙王位继承战争（1701-1714）之间的和平时期，多佛和加莱之间的邮船服务的重建如何影响了有影响力的学者网络中基于引文的联系的形成。最早的两种学术期刊的引文数据将决定网络的链接结构，并使这些链接表明累积创新：如果A引用了B，那么A就利用了B的现有知识创造了新的东西。英吉利海峡与战争有关的动荡并没有阻碍所有学者之间的双边交流。考虑到每一对可能的学者作为一个单独的横截面单位，产生了准实验设置。对照组包括最初未受影响的夫妇，治疗组包括直接从跨渠道服务的重建中受益的夫妇。一种新的计量经济学方法利用网络诱导的变异来估计不可观察的知识流动从实验组到对照组的影响。通过比较两组连接概率的前后变化来确定对治疗组的平均治疗效果。实证分析需要一套广泛的地理参考网络面板数据。该数据集允许研究不同的研究问题和测试新方法。研究结果可以为设计有效的知识产权保护政策提供参考，从而保持美国在创新方面的全球领先地位。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This doctoral dissertation research will use a unique historical data collected by the researchers to investigate the effects of scientific knowledge flows on innovation. Economic growth in advanced economies is mainly innovation-driven, a processes that rely on previous discoveries as essential inputs. Efficient access to recently generated knowledge thus is important for economic growth. Testing this theory is difficult because of lack of appropriate data. The researcher will use the resumption of scientific information between the UK and continental Europe in the intervening years between Nine Years War (1688-1697) and the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714) to develop a citation index linking scientific knowledge in the earlier period to scientific knowledge in the earlier period. The researchers will then use this data to assess how the information flow affected innovative activity afterwards. In addition to the research will develop a new and innovative methods that will allow them to draw a causal relationship from knowledge exchange to innovation. This research project permits the isolation of the innovation effects induced from changes in a communication channel. The results could provide inputs to design efficient intellectual property rights protection policies and thus maintain the US as the global leader in innovation. The proposed research project investigates how the re-establishment of the packet boat service between Dover and Calais in the period of peace intervening the Nine Years' War (1688-1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) affected the formation of citation-based links within a network of influential scholars. Citation data from the earliest two academic journals will determine the link structure of the network and make the links indicative of cumulative innovation: If A cited B, then A used the existing knowledge of B to create something new. War-related turmoil in the English Channel did not obstruct bilateral exchange between all scholars. Considering each possible pair of scholars as a separate cross-sectional unit gives rise to a quasi-experimental setting. The control group contains initially unaffected pairs and the treatment group pairs those who benefited directly from the re-establishment of the cross-channel service. A new econometric approach exploits network-induced variation to estimate the effect of unobservable knowledge flows from pairs in the treatment to pairs in the control group. The average treatment effect on the treated pairs is identified by comparing the two groups' pre- to post-period changes in the linking probability. The empirical analysis requires an extensive set of geo-referenced network panel data. The data set permits the study of different research questions and testing of new methods. The results could provide inputs to design efficient intellectual property rights protection policies and thus maintain the US as the global leader in innovation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.