Description:

Speaker: Franco Malpassi

Title: "General Purpose Technologies and the Evolution of Science: Evidence from the Early Computers"

Abstract: This work-in-progress examines how access to transformative technologies shapes scientific careers and research trajectories. We use the introduction of digital computers to U.S. universities during the 1950s and 1960s and study its impact on outcomes of faculty and PhD students. We collect and digitize novel data on historical computer installations at U.S. universities, combining it with scientific publication records and, in the future, with the Survey of Earned Doctorates. Exploiting the staggered adoption of computers by universities, we implement a differences-in-differences design to analyze how early exposure to computers influenced research outcomes, such as changes to researcher career trajectories, researcher productivity, diversity of fields, as well as overall direction of science.