This study explores the impact of high-speed railways (HSR) on inventor collaboration over long distances, which plays as a catalyst of face-to-face interactions and knowledge exchange. We use a novel region-to-region travel time dataset using HSR implementation in France. Employing a gravity model with three-way fixed effects, we assess the causal relationship between travel time reduction and cross-regional co-patenting trends between NUTS3 region-pairs, addressing endogeneity concerns. Results show a robust positive effect of reduced travel time on collaboration, most of all as comparison of intra-regional and long-distance collaborations. Core regions significantly benefit, but advantages extend beyond directly-HSR-connected regions. Moreover, reduced travel time is related to collaborative patents exhibiting higher novelty and wider scope within the realm of technology fields. Finally, we find that the reduction in travel time has fostered connections among inventor leaders and inventors with superior productivity compared to their collaborators’ pool.
This paper has received the Best Paper Award delivered by the 20th Augustin Cournot Doctoral Days and the Best Presentation Award delivered at the 15th ESSEC PhD Poster Session.