This paper explores the effect of the High Speed Rail (HSR) network expansion on local innovation in China during the period 2008-2016. Using exogenous variation arising from a novel instrument - courier’s stations during the Ming dynasty, we find solid evidence that the opening of a HSR...

In this paper we exploit a unique and rich dataset of patent applications and scientific publications in order to answer several questions concerned with two current phenomena on the way knowledge is produced and shared worldwide: its geographical spread at the international level and its...

Risk plays a fundamental role in scientific discoveries, and thus it is critical that the level of risk can be systematically quantified. We propose a novel approach to measuring risk entailed in a particular mode of discovery process – knowledge recombination. The recombination of extant...

This paper revisits the first World Gender Name Dictionary (WGND 1.0), allowing to disambiguate the gender in data naming physical persons (Lax Martínez et al., 2016). We discuss its advantages and limitations and propose an expansion based on updated data and additional sources. By including...

This paper explores the interplay between the extent of transportation infrastructure and various aspects of trust (interpersonal and political trust). We test our hypothesis by exploiting cross regional variation during the period 2002-2019. We focus on two measures of infrastructure, i.e., the...