Response to John Daly
Hi John,
Thank you so much for reading the book. I am really glad to know it is interesting to you. Your comments reveal how much time you have spent working on these questions...of course, you are right about international collaborations having to be worth the effort. But what is the incentive to make that extra effort across cultural, time, and language barriers? You are right that transaction costs have gone down, but with that, the number of opportunities have gone up, so people need to choose more carefully than before. I suggest that international collaboration is more attractive precisely because it can be ended relatively easily compared to side-by-side collaboration. Its existence suggests that it must be worth the effort or people wouldn't engage in it in the first place, and it is sustained because it brings value. It is attractive because it does not carry the same social weight as proximate collaboration. And, it encourages people who a re well known to seek out other well known people (basing collaborations on reputation) which I suggest is why the more renowned you are the more likely it is that you are working at the international level. Is all this good for science? not sure, but developing countries need to understand the dynamic in order to use science to build social welfare.
I do not have much interaction with UNESCO, so I am not a good person to talk about their positions on science. But I will recommend the class to students who are interested in that topic.
Again, thanks so much for reading and commenting on my book.
Caroline
Thank you so much for reading the book. I am really glad to know it is interesting to you. Your comments reveal how much time you have spent working on these questions...of course, you are right about international collaborations having to be worth the effort. But what is the incentive to make that extra effort across cultural, time, and language barriers? You are right that transaction costs have gone down, but with that, the number of opportunities have gone up, so people need to choose more carefully than before. I suggest that international collaboration is more attractive precisely because it can be ended relatively easily compared to side-by-side collaboration. Its existence suggests that it must be worth the effort or people wouldn't engage in it in the first place, and it is sustained because it brings value. It is attractive because it does not carry the same social weight as proximate collaboration. And, it encourages people who a re well known to seek out other well known people (basing collaborations on reputation) which I suggest is why the more renowned you are the more likely it is that you are working at the international level. Is all this good for science? not sure, but developing countries need to understand the dynamic in order to use science to build social welfare.
I do not have much interaction with UNESCO, so I am not a good person to talk about their positions on science. But I will recommend the class to students who are interested in that topic.
Again, thanks so much for reading and commenting on my book.
Caroline
posted by Caroline at
8:54 AM
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