Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Prior work indicates that proximity facilitates learning, but proximity reflects individual choices. New data on a British post-World War 2 program to detain and interrogate German industrial experts allow us to minimize selection bias and to disentangle individual dimensions of proximity. Our empirical analysis of post-detention patenting activities suggests that cognitive proximity was more important for interactive learning than social and institutional proximity. Detention in the UK increased inventors’ subsequent likelihood of interacting with UK partners as well as their post-detention patent output.