How researchers are using GitHub Innovation Graph data to reveal the “digital complexity” of nations

The GitHub Innovation Graph has been used by researchers to study the economic impact of open-source software and developer collaboration, revealing insights into the "digital complexity" of nations. This research, published in Research Policy, investigates how software development on GitHub can predict a country's GDP, inequality, and emissions, beyond traditional economic measures. The study utilized the Economic Complexity Index (ECI) applied to GitHub data, showing that software ECI can provide new information about economic factors. Researchers found that countries diversify into related technology stacks, similar to how they diversify in the physical economy, and the study's methodology involved analyzing GitHub's data on programming languages and clustering them into coherent technology bundles. The study faced limitations due to missing proprietary software data and a limited time window but suggests that software ECI could become a standard tool for policymakers. The researchers, each with diverse backgrounds in fields like economic geography, computational social science, and network science, emphasize the value of interdisciplinary collaboration and adaptive research strategies in exploring digital economies.