Do International Nonstop Flights Foster Influential Research?——Evidence from Sino-U.S. Scientific Collaboration

Abstract

The tacit nature of knowledge suggests that face-to-face interactions in international academic collaborations are irreplaceable. Yet, such anecdotal evidence has not been rigorously examined in the extant literature. Using a combination of difference in differences and fixed effect estimation strategies, this paper investigates the influence of international nonstop flights on the quantity of high-impact Sino-U.S. joint publications over the period between January 2009 and December 2018. We find that, on average, U.S-China international nonstop flights boost the production of influential articles in Chinese cities. But such effects vary substantially, where cities with less human capital earning more benefits. The revealed crowding out effect indicates that the positive effect of bilateral nonstop flights on scientific collaboration is plausibly at the sacrifice of collaboration opportunities with other countries. These findings remain robust, with various specifications. Policy implications for promoting global knowledge integration through international transportation are discussed in the end.

Keywords: Sino-U.S. scientific collaboration, international transportation, crowding-out effect, aviation data