We investigate the impact of short-term visits on scientific advancements by analyzing the staggered implementation of the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) across 41 countries from 1988-2023. Our focus is on global collaborations involving US and non-US researchers benefiting from the VWP. Our results reveal a substantial influence on academic publications and conference proceedings, with no evidence of a substitution (crowd-out) effect. The number of publications by single authors or those exclusively affiliated with VWP countries did not experience a significant change. Further, we find a more pronounced effect in fields such as nursing, veterinary science, health professions, economics, and management, compared to relatively smaller effects observed in chemistry, physics, biochemistry, and mathematics. Notably, the impact on conference proceedings materializes more rapidly and with greater magnitude than on journal publications. Fields previously characterized by solo-author dominance exhibit a heightened effect. These findings underscore the crucial role of short-term face-to-face interactions between researchers from different countries and provide implications for academic seminars and conferences, visa and immigration policies, research and development (R\&D) strategies, and the future of work.
Ansprechpartner: Daehyun Kim
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