Do international nonstop flights foster influential research? Evidence from Sino-US scientific collaboration.

• This research combines data of multiple sources on publication, aviation, and city features to investigate the impact of nonstop US-China flights on Sino-US collaborated research. • US-China international nonstop flights boost the coproduction of influential research at the level of Chinese cities. However, such effects vary, with cities with less human capital garnering more benefits. • No evidence is found in support of the crowding-out effect of US-China international nonstop flights on other Chinese scholars' collaboration types. The tacit nature of knowledge suggests that face-to-face interactions in international academic collaborations are irreplaceable. Yet, such anecdotal evidence has not been adequately examined in the extant literature. Using the difference-in-differences estimation strategy, this paper investigates the causal effect of international nonstop flights on the quantity of high-impact Sino-US joint publications over the period between January 2009 and December 2018. We find that, on average, US-China international nonstop flights boost the production of influential articles aggregated at Chinese cities, with cities with less human capital earning more benefits. We do not find evidence in support of the crowding-out effect indicating this positive effect comes at the expense of domestic and international collaboration opportunities with other countries. These findings remain robust with various specifications. Policy implications for promoting global collaboration through face-to-face communication are discussed in the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]