Do more distant collaborations have more citation impact?

Some evidence for you to look for co-authors located far away from home:

We find that citation impact increases with the geographical distance between the collaborating counties.

The key seems to be more creativity and more diffusion of findings. The study is here and the authors are Nomaler, Frenken, & Heimeriks. 

The study is for the European countries only, and the authors say:

Russia is a very productive country but its citation impact tends to be low. And reversely, Denmark’s output is only a seventh of Germany’s output, yet Denmark’s citation impact is the highest among all countries.

Imagine for example collaborative studies Guatemala-Rwanda, or Guatemala-Sri-Lanka, or Salvador-Colombia-Sierra Leone on issue of conflict and recovery. Or think about Guatemala City-Nairobi on apps and technology. Or Haiti-Liberia on economic growth. Or Alberta-Caracas on exploiting mineral resources successfully. Etc. Which is only speculation - but worth trying - because the authors restrict their sample to Europe.  

HT: Jonas Holmstrom