Transcript PISA 2009 - www.frdb.org Fondazione Rodolfo DeBenedetti

Talented in Rejecting Talents
Tito Boeri
(Fondazione RODOLFO DEBENEDETTI and Bocconi University )
“Brain Drain and Brain Gain”
XI fRDB European Conference
May 23rd 2009
Skilled migration and growth
• Migration increases incomes per capita in the
destination country insofar as it increases in
share of skilled workers in the workforce
• Effects not only on levels, but above all on
rates of growth
• Human capital is the source of the
externalities endogenously spurring growth
Ratio of share of high skilled in immigrant pop.
to the Share high skilled in home country pop.
Canada
UK
US
Korea
Australia
Portugal
NZL
Japan
Norway
Ireland
Iceland
Mexico
France
Netherlands
Sweden
Germany
Finland
Belgium
Denmark
Italy
Luxembourg
Spain
Switzerland
Turkey
Greece
Poland
Austria
Slovakia
Czech
Hungary
0
1
2
3
4
5
Source: Brucker et al. “The Battle for Brains: How to Attract Talent”, fRDB (2009)
6
7
8
9
Human capital externalities
• Skilled migration like capital mobility.
• Spillovers of human capital. Migrants can:
– transfer their human capital to natives
– affect incentives of natives to accumulate human
capital
– acquire themselves more human capital via
interactions with natives (e.g., on-the-job training)
• These externalities depend on the degree of
assimilation/dessimilation of migrants
Talents and Long-term Growth
• Since the mid-1990s Europe has stopped
catching up the US in income per capita
levels….and has been consistently losing
tertiary educated and PhDs to the US
• Since 1995 Italy has entered an economic
stagnation … and has been losing talents not
only to the US, but also to the rest of Europe
Exporting PhDs to the US
% of workers with Phds among newly arrived in the US
12
10
1990
2000
8
6
4
2
0
UK
Germany
France
Italy
Spain
Belgium
Us pop
Large turnover in the UK
Low inflows in Italy
Immigrants and emigrants with tertiary education in OECD
countries as % of domestic pop.
5%
4%
3%
Inflows
outflows
2%
1%
0%
Italy
UK
US
Desperately seeking
a “classe dirigente”
• Italy needs a more internationally minded, ruling
class. A few international managers. Performancerelated managerial style is minoritarian.
• Less and less politicians with tertiary education. A
very very few having received tertiary education
abroad.
• 2/3 of the Heads of State in 1990 had been studying
abroad. Almost 1/3 of the current Heads of State has
received education in the US.
A Survey of Foreign Ph.Ds in Italy
• The survey was carried out between April and May
2009.
• 41 Italian universities, accounting for about 91% of
PhD students in Italy.
• Response rate: more than 18% (451 obs.). Mostly
non-EU (77%), average age 29, women represent
about 44%, only 5% of them have Italian relatives.
• Additional interviews to a sample of BIEM students
at Bocconi University (69 obs., 50% non-EU, 68%
women )
• Questions concerning:
– Individual characteristics
– Compliance with immigration rules: costs, time invested, problems
faced.
– Interactions with the university system
Where do they come from?
EU15
13%
Asia
31%
NMS10
3%
NMS2
4%
Balcans
7%
Eastern Europe FSU
4%
Middle East
9%
Sub Saharian
Africa
North Africa
4%
7%
North America
4%
Latin America
14%
Ph.D programs
• 75% of the students are enrolled in scientific
programs of which 35% are pursuing PhDs in
engineering.
• 61% of the respondents follow courses taught
in English.
• The majority of the students have been
granted a fellowship (85%) usually given by
Italian public institutions (86%). Only 6% of
the students receive scholarships from their
own country’s institutions.
Why they came
• The main reason seems to be access to
financial aid (47%) and the good reputation of
the research institution (43%)
• Other factors, such as proximity to the home
country and the knowledge of Italian are less
relevant.
• The key factor in the decision to study abroad
is careers prospects and quality of the
research
Problems
• Bureaucracy (“bureau-crazy”) is the main
source of concerns
• Two thirds of the students (63%) experienced
a delay in the release/renewal of residence
permits. Some of them had it already expired!
• 2/3 complain about language skills of civil
servants (do not speak English).
• 4 out of 10 complain about lack of information
about administrative procedures
Non-EU students: permit of stay
• Procedures to obtain all the certificates are
expensive in terms of money and time wasted.
• Questura Services seem to be inaccessible:
77% of the respondents had to wait more
than one month to get an appointment. Once
there, 63% of them had to wait for more than
3 hours.
Time costs of the residence permit
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Conferences and Travels
abroad
• Due to delay in having permit of stay:
– 26% of non-EU students experienced
problems to travel abroad for conference or
job-market seminars.
– 39% of the respondents had troubles to
leave Italy for vacation.
From the students’ interviews…
«the first time I received my permit in 9 months, the following time in 11 months and this
time it is going to be more than a year.»
«The most frequent expression I heard from Italians was “non lo so”… »
«Every person I’ve met at Questura had a different interpretation on what I was supposed
to do to renew my permit of stay»
«I am now doing an internship in Singapore. I got the Stay permit within 3 hours of
submission of my application. In Italy it took 22 months. […] I am too much desperate
with Italian bureaucracy. After finishing my studies I will run away from Italy»
«When my studies finish I want to work in Italy, but the procedure to immigrate is very
complicated and difficult, especially for my relatives, so I gave up this idea»
«I have studied in 4 universities before coming to Italy and worked in different parts of the
world. I found Italy one of the places where a foreigner does not feel comfortable. I
found that Italy is losing capacity to integrate foreigners to its culture and this will
have a strong impact on the quality of students it will be able to attract»
Personal evaluation
• The quality of teaching is considered very
good (63%), as well as the University system.
• However a large part of the respondents
(39%) think that career opportunities are
limited
• 88% of those who have decided what to do
after the PhD (47%) plan to leave Italy after
completing their studies
What can be done to attract
talents?
1. The permit of stay should lasts as long as the study
programme
2. Selective immigration policy (point system)
3. Foreign students with an Italian degree will gain more
“points”…
4. Universities should be free to choose their foreign
students based on cv and qualifications (why should
administrative authories be better?)