Transcript Document

Migration of Chinese scientists
and their productivity 1998-2006
--some preliminary findings
George Mason University
School of public policy
Fangmeng (Tim) Tian
10/19/2010
Introduction
 A PhD candidate of policy study
 A student of migration
 Focus on skilled emigration
 Target population: Chinese scientists in the
Jiaotong 500 universities
Literature review I
- Brain drain’s negative impacts
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Lose skilled labor (Bhagwati et al 1974)
Reduce economic scale (Miyagiwa1991)
Change skill composition (Haque & Kim 1995)
Distorting learning incentive (Maria &
Stryszowski, 2009)
 Hinder human capital accumulation (Wong &
Yip, 1999)
 Critique: many mathematical models,
unrealistic assumptions, a few empirical
studies
Literature review II
- Brain circulation’s positive impacts
 From human-capital approach to network
approach, particularly relevant to S&T
 At least some emigrants return and bring
back capital and technology (Kapur, et al.
2001; Saxenian, 2005).
 The diaspora send back remittance and
transfer knowledge (Ratha 2003; Thorn and
Nielsen 2006 ).
 Critique: more about organizations than
individuals; lack of systemic evidence
Research design
 Central question: How did migration of scientists
affect Chinese researchers’ productivity and China’s
science development in the period 1998 – 2006?
 Research goals
1. evaluate the benefits of return migration and the
scientific diaspora
2. examines the role of international migration on
scientists’ productivity and career development
 Three data sources
survey + CV + bibliometric data
Selected key questions
 What were China’s direct and potential losses due to
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emigration of its students and scientists?
Were the scientists exchange between the U.S.,
China, and other foreign countries positively or
negatively selected?
What kind of emigrant scientists are more likely to
collaborate with domestic scholars?
Did returnees experience a productivity loss after
they went back to China?
How much did returnees obtain productivity gain by
overseas experience in the short and long term?
Dependent variables
Variable
General
productivity
Definition
Fractionalized number of SCI papers
weighted by citation counts in a threeyear window
Highest
Quality level of a scientist’s single most
performance cited paper
International Number of Internationally coauthored
collaboration papers of overseas scientists
Collaboration Number of an overseas scientist’s
with China
papers coauthored only with domestic
scientists
Independent variables
 Age/cohort (gra-year of BS)
 Quality of doctoral education (university
ranking of highest degree)
 Working environment (research ranking of
affiliated university)
 Professional status (assistant prof.-full prof.)
 Field: physics, biology, chemstry, math
 Migration status (stayers, returnees,
emigrants)
Target Population
 A scientist in the sample is required to be a Chinese
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researcher currently employed by a global leading
university in the English academia.
Chinese: those who were born in mainland China,
and obtained a BS degree (Bachelor of Science) at a
Chinese university after 1978.
English academia: United States, United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and
Singapore + mainland China
Global leading university: around 250 top universities
in the seven English-speaking countries and about 20
Chinese universities
Only four fields: math, physics, chemistry, biology
Data Collection
– Survey, CV, and SCI
 The population size is about 7000: 5500 domestic
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scientists and 1500 overseas scientists.
By far I generated a sample of 305 scientists, all of
whom got their PhD before 2008.
Collect SCI publication records in 1998, 2002, and
2006
Citation counts of each paper in the following three
years
Collaboration with China/foreign partner of each
paper
Education background1
BS
Ran
k
Example
%
PhD Rank JT 500 rank
%
1
1-50
11.66
1
PKU, Tsinghua
9.41
2
50-100
6.75
2
Zhejiang,Fudan
25.95
3
Shandong
31.42
3
101-150
3.44
4
Tianjin
3.31
4
151-200
2.7
5
Rest
29.9
5*
201-300
32.15
6
301-400
9.94
7
401-500
25.03
8
Not on the list
8.34
1/3 of the scientists got their
highest degree abroad
(including Hong Kong).
* Including CAS
Education background 2
BS gra-year %
PhD gra-year %
1977/1983
16.84
1982/1989
5.79
1984/1989
24.35
1990/1996
20.32
1990/1996
33.81
1997/2002
36.08
1997/2003
25
2003/2008
37.81
Selectivity of doctoral education
BS Rank
1
Domestic PhD
(%)
Foreign PhD
(%)
5.66
16.42
2
22.27
32.85
3
34.18
26.28
4
2.93
4.01
5
34.96
20.44
Selectivity of employment
PhD Rank
Domestic
Foreign
1
2
3
4
1.85
1.23
1.65
0.62
31.47
20.26
5.17
5.6
5
6
7
36.63
12.35
35.8
23.71
6.47
7.33
8
9.88
31.47
Migration status
Year
Stayer
Returnee*
Emigrant
Brain drain
rate
(%)
Returning rate
(%)
1998(%)
59.1
9.8
31.1
31.1
24.0
2002(%)
56.2
5.4
38.4
38.4
12.2
2006(%)
59.5
8.2
32.3
32.3
20.3
*Returnee: those who got an overseas PhD degree.
If we define returnees as those who stayed abroad for at least two years, then
the return rate can be boosted to over 50%.
Affiliation in 2006
Domestic Chinese scientists
Univ
Rank
JT 500 rank
%
5*
201-300
44.65
6
301-400
12.14
7
401-500
40.74
8
Not on the list
2.47
Overseas Chinese scientists
Univ
Rank
JT 500 rank
%
1
1-50
28.02
2
50-100
21.55
3
101-150
6.9
4
151-200
5.6
5
201-300
23.28
6
301-400
6.47
7
401-500
2.59
8
Not on the list
5.6
* Including CAS
Research output and average
productivity
Research output of Chinese scientists by location
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
1998
2002
Domestic
2006
Overseas
Average productivity of Chinese scientists by location
9.0
8.0
7.0
6.0
5.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
1998
2002
Domestic
Overseas
2006
Individual and team highest
performance (75% percentile)
Individual highest performance
6.0
5.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
1998
2002
Domestic
2006
Overseas
Team highest performance
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
1998
2002
Domestic
Overseas
2006
International collaboration
%
International collaboration of Chinese scientists
30.0
25.0
20.0
domestic with foreign
15.0
overseas with domestic
10.0
5.0
0.0
1998
2002
2006
Regression analysis
 Using individual general productivity as the
dependent variable, I found migration status
(stayer, returnee, emigrant) is highly
signficant.
 The dummy value “returnee” is negative,
which might indicate that returnees are
negatively selected, after other factors are
controlled.
Tentative conclusions
 Chinese scientists live in a merit-based world, and
the road to a prestigious position is highly selective.
 In terms of both quantity and quality, the productivity
gap between domestic and overseas Chinese is
getting narrower.
 International collaboration has grown proportionally
between domestic and overseas Chinese.
 Returnees contribute a lot to the research activities in
China, but they might be negatively selected
compared with emigrants.
What I’m going to do next…
 Second wave of survey and expand the
sample to be 500 observations.
 Weigh the sample to be more representative
 Decompose the change of research output
 Design a mathematical model and explain the
conditions for an optimal research output
 Estimate the research output under different
conditions
 Thank you!
 Questions and comments?
Appendix: policy implication
Policy
Sending country
Receiving country
Higher
education
policy
Improve the quality of
teaching
Target certain types of
students from the sending
country
Science
Policy
Provide conducive
research environment;
merit-based recruitment
Encourage collaboration
with the sending country
Migration
policy
Target certain types of
returnees; mobilize
diaspora
Change selection criteria
Foreign policy
Enhance relationship
with host countries
Facilitate brain circulation;
particularly return
migration