信息与通信技术、协作与创新：来自BITNET的证据

中文摘要

获取降低信息与通信成本的技术是否会增加创新？我们通过利用20世纪80年代BITNET在美国各大学的交错采用来考察这一问题。BITNET是互联网的早期版本，使学者之间能够进行基于电子邮件的知识交流与协作。在采用BITNET之后，与大学相关的发明者的专利数量大幅增加。该效应由新发明人团队的协作专利所驱动。由信息与通信技术引发的专利与科学密切相关。相比之下，我们既未发现对与科学不密切相关的专利的影响，也未发现对与大学无关的企业发明者的影响。

Abstract

Does access to technologies that reduce information and communication costs increase innovation? We examine this question by exploiting the staggered adoption of BITNET across U.S. universities in the 1980s. BITNET, an early version of the Internet, enabled e-mail-based knowledge exchange and collaboration among academics. After the adoption of BITNET, university-connected inventors increase patenting substantially. The effects are driven by collaborative patents by new inventor teams. The patents induced by ICT are closely related to science. In contrast, we neither find an effect on patents not closely related to science nor on corporate inventors unconnected to universities.