This paper is published in Economic Letters recently (available online July 14, 2014). Using publicly available academic records in US chemistry department, the author investigates factors influencing return migration decisions by foreign scientists. It turns out that gender matters (females are less likely to return), GDP per capita difference matters (higher home country wage increases probability for returning), US B.S. degree matters, and productivity matters (outstanding professors tend to return with higher probability, but top Ph.D. program and top job placement are not significant).
Author: Patrick Gaulé
Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176514002699
Comment:
1. It makes me so sad that China has a rather low odd ratio.
2. The empirical part is not convincing enough. For one thing, average chemistry faculty wage would be much more persuasive than the GDP per capita term.
3. Actually this topic matters for the topic of development convergence. In terms of academic area, the return ratio determines whether the developing countries can catch up with the developed ones. The return decision would be influenced by income difference (a lot of factors here, including job searching costs and matching issues in home country, influenced by wage difference, research environment difference and peer effect), personal emotion for home country and family reasons.
Author: Patrick Gaulé
Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176514002699
Comment:
1. It makes me so sad that China has a rather low odd ratio.
2. The empirical part is not convincing enough. For one thing, average chemistry faculty wage would be much more persuasive than the GDP per capita term.
3. Actually this topic matters for the topic of development convergence. In terms of academic area, the return ratio determines whether the developing countries can catch up with the developed ones. The return decision would be influenced by income difference (a lot of factors here, including job searching costs and matching issues in home country, influenced by wage difference, research environment difference and peer effect), personal emotion for home country and family reasons.
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