TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ding,Waverly W.
AU  - Levin,Sharon G.
AU  - Stephan,Paula E.
AU  - Winkler,Anne E.
TI  - The Impact of Information Technology on Scientists' Productivity, Quality and Collaboration Patterns
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15285
PY  - 2009
Y2  - August 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15285
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15285.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Waverly Ding
Haas School of Business
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA  94720-1900
E-Mail: wding@haas.berkeley.edu

Sharon G. Levin
University of Missouri-St. Louis
St. Louis, MO 63121
Tel: 3149972319
E-Mail: slevin@umsl.edu

Paula Stephan
Department of Economics
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University
Box 3992
Atlanta, GA 30302-3992
Tel: 404/413-0160
Fax: 404/413-0145
E-Mail: pstephan@gsu.edu

Anne E. Winkler
University of Missouri-St. Louis
St. Louis, MO 63121
E-Mail: awinkler@umsl.edu
AB  - This study advances the prior literature concerning the impact of information technology on productivity in academe in two important ways. First, it utilizes a dataset that combines information on the diffusion of two noteworthy and early innovations in IT -- BITNET and the Domain Name System (DNS) -- with career history data on research-active life scientists.  This research design allows for proper identification of the availability of access to IT as well as a means to directly identify causal effects.  Second, the fine-grained nature of the data set allows for an investigation of three publishing outcomes: counts, quality, and co-authorship. Our analysis of a random sample of 3,771 research-active life scientists from 430 U.S. institutions over a 25-year period supports the hypothesis of a differential return to IT across subgroups of the scientific labor force. Women scientists, early-to-mid-career scientists, and those employed by mid-to-lower-tier institutions benefit from access to IT in terms of overall research output and an increase in the number of new co-authors they work with.  Early-career scientists and those in top-tier institutions gain in terms of research quality when IT becomes available at their campuses.
ER  -