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Aside from its naked cruelty, Just how bad are new ICE and H1B requirements for American competitiveness? Really bad, and just what the doctor ordered for China's basic research and tech ecosystems. 1/ https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/how-bad-us-immigration-policy-helps
5k Chinese graduate with American STEM PhDs every year compared to 40k in China. Those 5k in the US are generally the sharpest and most ambitious. The Chinese government for years has been trying to lure back elite STEM talent, and Trump's new policies do the work for them. /2
What's most non-sensical is that these Chinese students really would prefer to stay in America! For instance, over 90% of Chinese AI talent studying in the US would prefer to work in the US at graduation. (research from @MacroPoloChina)/3
Right now, Chinese researchers and Chinese returnees to mainland universities produce more impactful research than those who never left China. /4
Disaggregating the causes of this gap isn't straightforward. Maybe it's because researchers are on average smarter, better trained, and better funded in the west. Maybe publish-or-perish incentives are too harsh in China. /5
But regardless of the cause, the influx of top talent can only help. Further, the future quality of American PhD candidates will take a nosedive thanks to increasing uncertainty over whether students can stay in the US after graduating /6
As this paper shows, a minor blip in H1B policy in 2004 dropped top SAT and GRE scores by a few percentage points. That will be peanuts compared to what 2020 does to the applicant pool. /7 https://commons.colgate.edu/econ_facschol/18/
What makes this most idiotic is that America occupies tech's commanding heights precisely because of its immigrants' talent and ingenuity. Ex: 'US patents increased by 31 percent in fields common among Jewish scientists who fled Nazi Germany for America'/8 https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/august/german-jewish-inventors-081114.html
America's "innovation immigration surplus" far exceeds anywhere else in the world. Note that skewed Y-axis: we're up 200k, and no other nation is even close. /9
Given the nightmare that is navigating the US immigration system, it's perhaps the truest testament to America's universities, economy, and culture that so many of the world's most driven and ambitious decide to uproot themselves to come here. /9
Throwing this all away will not have the immediate impact of other Trump blunders. But to be sure, its effect will compound over time, as the next generation of Elon Musks and Sergey Brins choose to study and build outside of America. /10
More in my newsletter and podcast here: https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/how-bad-us-immigration-policy-helps
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-h1b-ban-and-national-security/id1289062927?i=1000479843955 /END
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-h1b-ban-and-national-security/id1289062927?i=1000479843955 /END
thanks to @r_zwetsloot , @tinahuang__ , @william_r_kerr and the @MacroPoloChina squad for doing research that fed into this.
of interest to @patrickc , @FWDus , @tylercowen , @benjaminwittes @shaneharris @Susan_Hennessey @RatlSecurity
I guess I did tweets of the week too this week. Congrats to @Chri5tianGoebel @S_Rabinovitch @benjaminqiu @XiranJayZhao (god you're so good at twitter) and @tony_zy for making tweets of the week.
