Information accessibility and knowledge creation: the impact of Google’s withdrawal from China on scientific research

academic publications; China; Google; Information accessibility; knowledge production; Business, Management and Accounting (all); Management of Technology and Innovation; D83; I23

Abstract :

[en] How important is Google for scientific research? This paper exploits the exogenous shock represented by Google’s sudden withdrawal of its services from mainland China to assess the importance of access to information for the knowledge production function of scientific scholars in the field of economics. For economists, a type of scholar with a simple knowledge production function, results from difference-in-difference analyses, which compare their scientific output to scholars located in the neighbouring regions, show that the scientific productivity declines by about 28% in volume and 30% in terms of citations. These results are consistent with the view that information accessibility is an important driver of scientific progress. Considering that the negative effect of the shock is stronger for top scholars located in China, Google’s sudden exit bears the risk that researchers lose touch with the research frontier and persistently lag behind their foreign peers.

Disciplines :

Strategy & innovation

Author, co-author :

HUSSINGER, Katrin ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (FDEF) > Department of Economics and Management (DEM) ; Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven, Belgium ; Economics of innovation and industrial dynamics, Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, Germany

PALLADINI, Lorenzo ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance > Department of Economics and Management > Team Katrin HUSSINGER

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Information accessibility and knowledge creation: the impact of Google’s withdrawal from China on scientific research

Publication date :

2024

Journal title :

Industry and Innovation

ISSN :

1366-2716

eISSN :

1469-8390

Publisher :

Routledge

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

753 - 783

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13662716.2023.2298293

Funding text :

We would like to thank Benjamin Balsmeier and Bettina Peters for helpful comments. In addition, we would like to thank participants of the KU Leuven Research Retreat 2022, the 2022 EPIP Conference, the 9th ZEW/MaCCI Conference\u2013INNOPAT, the 2022 RISE Workshop, the 16th Workshop on Organisation, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research (WOEPSR), the PDW on Innovation, Technology and R&D Management at the University of Essex, the Munich Summer Institute 2023, and the participants to the internal seminar at ESADE and Copenhagen Business School.

Available on ORBilu :

since 17 January 2025

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