Redirected Science as a Byproduct: The Institutional Revolution in the German Empire

I study how a positive shock to physical capital affects the direction of research.

I do so in the context of German universities around 1900 based on a novel dataset covering all printed dissertations from 1882–1917.

I exploit the idiosyncratic roll-out of physics institutes at German universities in a staggered diff-in-diff framework. The institutes were constructed to meet the demands of a growing body of medical students, followed common design principles and were often subject to political tinkering and bureaucratic delays.

Physics institutes did not increase the number of new physicists, but redirected their research: Dissertations shifted away from heat towards electricity and mechanics, two measurement-heavy fields. They were less likely to introduce new terminology, not because research within fields became less novel, but because of the shift into electricity. Within cohorts, dissertation topics became more concentrated. Dissertations were also more likely to be published in a journal, though these publications did not receive more citations, and new physicists were more likely to go into science, but not more likely to habilitate. I interpret these results as a shift from exploration towards exploitation. pdf