Author(s)
Source
Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 90, No. 3, pp. 518-537, 2008
Summary
This paper shows that US researchers with foreign ties increase the rate of technology transfer to their home countries.
Policy Relevance
The emigration of highly-skilled individuals to advanced economies seems to assist in the diffusion of technological knowledge to the country of origin.
Main Points
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New technologies and inventions spur growth; but, developed countries around for 83% of research and developments and expenditures and 98% of patenting.
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Poor countries rely on the diffusion of technologies, patents, and other productive knowledge.
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Diffusion to poor countries is slower than might be expected, perhaps because informal knowledge is necessary for the use of information contained in patents and publications. For example, a patent may contain a description of a part in a machine, but not the manufacturing technique used to make such a part.
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Sending scientists from underdeveloped to advanced economies might help knowledge diffuse more quickly.
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Foreign researchers cite papers written by US researchers of the same ethnicity 30-50% more frequently in the first 5 years after a paper is published, suggesting ethnicity is related to knowledge diffusion.
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At national and industry levels, each 10% increase of a nation’s contingent of scientists in the US is expected to increase corresponding output in the home country by 1-4%. For example, if the number of Indian computer scientists in the US doubled, the Indian tech industry’s output might be expected to increase by 10-40%.
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Industrialized but underdeveloped countries like the Asian tigers tended to increase output by making existing workers more productive; less-developed countries tended to add workers to their existing industries instead.
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Knowledge transfers are particularly important in high-tech fields.