There are large variations in research output among nations despite the rapid globalization progress. This article provides a new angle to help explain such variations. In this article, we study the impact of internet penetration on the research output of an economy. Using a country-level panel dataset, we find that higher internet penetration increases the volume of research output in an economy. The results are robust to a number of specifications, including an instrumental variable approach that addresses the endogeneity of internet penetration. We also find some evidence showing that the impact of internet penetration on research output quantity decreases as the size of fixed broadband users increase in an economy. The effects of internet access on research quality is less conclusive. Results suggest that broadening the access of internet is important for research output boosting or innovation in general.

尽管全球化进程迅速，但各国之间的研究产出差异很大。本文提供了一个新的角度来帮助解释这些变化。在本文中，我们研究了互联网普及率对经济体研究产出的影响。使用国家级面板数据集，我们发现更高的互联网普及率会增加经济体中的研究产出量。结果对许多规范都是稳健的，包括解决互联网渗透内生性的工具变量方法。我们还发现一些证据表明，随着经济体中固定宽带用户规模的增加，互联网普及率对研究产出数量的影响会降低。互联网访问对研究质量的影响尚无定论。