Historical Evidence from Patent Records

2 January 2024

The study conducted by Thor Berger and Erik Prawitz is published in Journal of Urban Economics. It links the expansion of Sweden's 19th-century railroad network to increased collaborative patents, highlighting reduced travel costs as key to technological collaboration.

Published January 2

Collaboration and Connectivity: Historical Evidence from Patent Records

Why has collaboration become increasingly central to technological progress? We document the role of lowered travel costs by combining patent data with the rollout of the Swedish railroad network in the 19th and early-20th century. Inventors that gain access to the network are more likely to produce collaborative patents, which is partly driven by long-distance collaborations with other inventors residing along the emerging railroad network. These results suggest that the declining costs of interacting with others is fundamental to account for the long-term increase in inventive collaboration.

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