Climbing atop the Shoulders of Giants: The Impact of Institutions on Cumulative Research

Abstract

While the cumulative nature of knowledge is recognized as central to economic growth, the microeconomic foundations of cumulativeness are less understood. This paper investigates the impact of research-enhancing institutions on cumulativeness, highlighting two effects. First, a selection effect may result in a high correlation between "high-quality" institutions and knowledge of high intrinsic quality. Second, an institution may have a marginal impact -an incremental influence on cumulativeness, conditional on the type and quality of knowledge considered. This paper distinguishes these effects in the context of a specific institution, biological resource centers (BRCs). BRCs are "living libraries" that authenticate, preserve, and offer independent access to biological materials, such as cells, cultures, and specimens. BRCs may enhance the cumulativeness of knowledge by reducing the marginal cost to researchers of drawing on prior research efforts. We exploit three key aspects of the environment to evaluate how BRCs affect the cumulativeness of knowledge: (a) the impact of scientific knowledge is reflected in future scientific citations, (b) deposit into BRCs often occurs with a substantial lag after initial research is completed and published and (c) "lagged" deposits often result from exogenous shocks. Employing a difference-indifferences estimator linking specific materials deposits to journal articles, we find evidence for both selection into and the marginal impact of BRCs. Moreover, the marginal impact increases with time. Public expenditures towards ensuring that discoveries and knowledge are accessible to future research generations may have a higher rate of return than simply funding additional research studies. "If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulder of giants."Isaac Newton, 1676

Disclosure or secrecy? The dynamics of Open Science

“…To build upon prior research findings, researchers must often learn and master particular methods or research tools or engage in costly replication experiments. These efforts are investments that, unless they contravene prior findings, do not contribute directly to the knowledge pool (Mokyr, 2002;Furman and Stern, 2008). The sunk cost F is simply the cost for a researcher to reach the publicly disclosed knowledge frontier.…”

“…The ability to exploit knowledge across research generations depends on the quality of institutions that, by enhancing both the "technology of access" and the "trustworthiness of sources," facilitate low-cost knowledge transfer by enhancing both the "technology of access" and the "trustworthiness of sources" (Mokyr, 2002, p. 8). As discussed further in Furman and Stern (2008), the quality of the knowledge pool depends on institutions that enhance the "fidelity" of the knowledge pool (i.e., the ability of researchers to trust and use prior research findings), such as the strength and consistency of the peer review process and the availability and clarity of data and resources for replication purposes. 5 We therefore interpret α as a measure of the institutional quality and fidelity of the knowledge pool that which enhances the efficiency by which knowledge from G t − 1 can be exploited by G t (conditional on deposit by G t − 1 ).…”

“…Effective diffusion of knowledge across researchers and over time requires that individuals are aware of the extant knowledge and that they pay the costs of accessing that knowledge. The ability of a society to stand on the shoulders of giants depends not only the amount of knowledge it generates but also on the quality of mechanisms for storing knowledge, the trustworthiness of that knowledge, and the cost to future generations of accessing that knowledge (Mokyr, 2002;Furman and Stern, 2008).…”

Classifying Patents Based on Their Semantic Content

“…But it is also crucial for firms that face an ever changing demand structure and need to anticipate future technological trends and convergence (see, e.g., [11]) to adapt to the resulting increase in competition discussed in [12] and to maintain market share. Curiously, and in spite of the large number of studies that analyze interactions across technologies [13], little is known about the underlying "innovation network" (e.g. [14]).…”

Safeguarding bacterial resources promotes biotechnological innovation

“…This also means that the so-called reference strains not deposited in a public culture collection might actually have deviated from their original material, thus serving as a false reference, in the absence of routine authenticity checks (Stackebrandt 2010). Another, more tangible, incentive for scientists to deposit their strains in a public culture collection is the significant selective increase of citations of papers in which strains have a collection deposit (Furman and Stern 2006).…”