Colocation and Scientific Collaboration : Evidence from a Field Experiment

1. Colocation and Scientific Collaboration: Evidence from a Field Experiment Kevin Boudreau, Tom Brady, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva Guinan, KarimLakhani, Tony Hollenberg Comments by: Nicola Lacetera (University of Toronto & NBER)

2. Experimental Economics

3. ExperimentalEconomics

4. ExperimentalEconomics What tradeoffs are triggered by the intervention?

5. Economics of scientific colocation & collaboration Tradeoff 1: Incentives (selection) versus…? • Implicit incentive to apply with someone else • Same room + same clinical area + previous copub.  lower costs (of both info flow and collaboration)  higher incentives • Researchers “select” into participating to sessions (for collaborative grants) • Comparison group? • What (else) might we expect? What countervailing forces? • No effects/negative effects: info updating? Free riding on info? Different functions of these meetings(e.g. commitment to meet and move previously discussed projects further)? • Guiding model/theoretical framework to lay out tradeoffs and generate testable predictions • More “anecdotal” evidence of what’s going on in these sessions, who knows who, etc.

6. Economics of scientific colocation & collaboration Tradeoff 2: Cost-benefit analysis • Help assess efficiency (frictions) as well as generalizability of intervention Costs • Opportunity cost of time for researchers (time length of meetings, time to write grants, unit cost of time, #of researchers) • Opportunity costs of reviewers (time length of reviewing, #reviewers, #applications, cost of unit time) • Compare to alternative mechanisms (experimental or “natural”)?

7. Economics of scientific colocation & collaboration Tradeoff 2: Cost-benefit analysis • Help assess efficiency (frictions) as well as generalizability of intervention Benefits • Quantity / quality of outcomes from collaborations • Quantify value of a publication/citation? • Longer-term outcomes. As first step, may use secondary sources (e.g. “conversion ratios from collaboration to publication/citations from other studies) Implicit incentive to apply with someone else • Baseline/counterfactuals. What did the non-collaborating scientists do? • Insight also into substitution effects • Cost per unit of outcome? (e.g. and shameless self-prom from ARC intervention: $22-$55 per additionalblood unit collected; lower bound benefit per unit: ~$1,000)

8. Some technical questions Structure of errors and clustering • By room b/c main experimental unit: 10-15 clusters • Corrections for small number of clusters – see Cameron et al.’s (RESTAT 2008) Experimental condition X non-experimental variables • Multiple hp. testing and Bonferroni correction • Fink-McConnell-Volmer (HSPH WP 2011) Nonlinear specifications? • Probit/logit(also corrected for rare events)

9. Summary and ideas for next steps Very nice opportunity to explore the economics of scientific colocation and collaboration What countervailing forces? • Theory to help distinguish predictions on effects of colocation on scientific activity Efficiency? • Is favouring collaboration through this program worth the cost?